THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


LINCOLN  AT  GETTYSBURG 
BY  DANIEL  CHESTER  FRENCH 

"For  a  moment  Lincoln,  towering  up  in  his  unusual  height,  stood  silent, 
his  hands  clasped,  his  head  bowed.  Then  he  lifted  his  face  to  the  vast  con- 
course of  people,  and  in  that  high  pitched  tenor  yoice  so  familiar  to  those 
who  had  heard  him  speak  in  the  out-of-door  political  gatherings  in  Illinois, 
a  voice  that  carried  his  words  to  the  outer  edges  of  the  great  crowd,  he 
gave  his  now  immortal  Address."  Page  67. 


LINCOLN'S 

GETTYSBURG 

ADDRESS 


BY 
ORTON  H.  CARMICHAEL 


THE    ABINGDON    PRESS 

NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  1917,  by 
ORTON  H.  CARMICHAEL 


DEDICATED 

TO  ALL  THOSE  WHO  LOVE  THE  GREAT 
LINCOLN  AND  WHO  BELIEVE  THAT  AT 
GETTYSBURG  HE  VOICED  THE  MESSAGE 
OF  AMERICA  TO  THE  WORLD. 


1910753  ' 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

FOREWORD 9 

I.    THE  BACKGROUND  OF  HISTORY 13 

II.    THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATIONAL  CEMETERY  26 

III.  FROM  WHITE  HOUSE  TO  BATTLEFIELD  37 

IV.  THE  NIGHT  AT  GETTYSBURG 43 

V.     THE  DAY  OF  DEDICATION 51 

VI.     A  RECEPTION  AND  A  VILLAGE  HERO.  .  .  73 

VII.    THE  SPELL  UPON  THE  MULTITUDE.  ...  79 

VIII.    THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  ADDRESS.  ...  84  — 

IX.    A  PRODUCT  OF  TRAINING  AND  OF  GENIUS  97 

X.    LEST  WE  FORGET.  .  ,113 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

LINCOLN  AT  GETTYSBURG FRONTISPIECE 

"  WE  CAN  NEVER  FORGET  WHAT  THEY  DID 

HERE" 24 

MR.  DAVID  WILLS 26 

"THE  LAST  FULL  MEASURE  OF  DEVOTION"..  28 

THE  LINCOLN  ADDRESS  MEMORIAL 34 

THE  HOME  OF  DAVID  WILLS 42 

INTERIOR  OF  THE  LINCOLN  ROOM  IN  THE  WILLS 

HOUSE 48 

Miss  AGNES  MAC€REARY  AND  HER  FLAG..  . .     62 
BALTIMORE  STREET  ON  THE  DAY  OF  DEDICATION     72 

THE  STATUE  OF  JOHN  BURNS 76 

INTERIOR  OF  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 78 

FACSIMILE  OF  A  LETTER  OF  DAVID  WILLS.  ...     86 
ORIGINAL  DRAFT  OF  THE  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS    90 

LETTER  OF  MR.  CLARENCE  L.  HAY 92 

"THE  HAY  MANUSCRIPT" 93 

AUTOGRAPH  COPY  OF  THE  ADDRESS 96 

THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  IN  1863 100 

PHOTOGRAPH  OF  A  LINCOLN  DOCUMENT 108 

"THEY  DID  NOT  DIE  IN  VAIN",.  .   112 


FOREWORD 

FEW  literary  productions  are  more  fa- 
miliar to  the  American  people,  or  more 
highly  prized  by  them,  than  is  the  address 
which  was  made  by  President  Lincoln  at  the 
dedication  of  the  Soldiers'  National  Ceme- 
tery at  Gettysburg.  Programs  on  innumer- 
able occasions  are  felt  hardly  to  be  complete 
unless  they  include  a  reading  of  this  speech, 
some  recognition  of  it  is  found  in  the  courses 
of  study  of  almost  every  public  school  in  the 
land,  and  with  a  frequency  not  true  of  any 
other  American  utterance  it  is  inscribed  upon 
the  walls  of  colleges  and  universities. 

But  notwithstanding  the  popularity  of 
the  address,  erroneous  ideas  widely  prevail 
touching  the  time  and  place  of  its  composi- 
tion, as  well  as  regarding  the  reception  which 
was  accorded  its  delivery.  Some  recent  pop- 
ular books,  unhistorical  in  character  and 
perhaps  not  purposed  by  their  authors  to  be 
otherwise  considered,  have  tended  to  confirm 
many  misleading  impressions. 

This  little  volume  is  the  result  of  an  at- 
9 


FOREWORD 

tempt  to  state  briefly  in  logical  order  such 
well-attested  facts,  both  old  and  new,  as  bear 
upon  the  writing,  the  delivery  and  the  revi- 
sion of  this  address  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  together 
with  an  account  of  some  of  the  incidents  and 
circumstances  connected  with  his  visit  to 
Gettysburg  at  the  time  the  address  was 
made. 

Without  attempting  to  name  all  those  to 
whom  we  are  indebted,  we  desire  to  express 
our  thanks  to  Mr.  Clarence  L.  Hay  and  to 
Mrs.  Helen  Hay  Whitney  for  information 
regarding  the  manuscripts  of  the  Gettysburg 
address  which  were  presented  by  President 
Lincoln  to  their  father,  the  Hon.  John  Hay ; 
to  Mr.  Jesse  W.  Weik  of  Greencastle,  In- 
diana, for  data  concerning  Lincoln  docu- 
ments; to  Mr.  Daniel  Chester  French  for  a 
photograph  of  his  well-known  work  of  art, 
"Lincoln  at  Gettysburg";  to  W.  H.  Tipton, 
the  veteran  photographer  of  Gettysburg, 
and  to  G.  Cornwell  Taylor,  of  the  same  place, 
for  several  photographs;  to  Samuel  M.  Ral- 
ston, Governor  of  Indiana,  and  to  Martin  A. 
Morrison,  Member .  of  Congress  from  the 
same  State,  for  their  kind  offices  in  securing 
10 


FOREWORD 

access  to  original  sources  of  information ;  and 
to  Colonel  John  P.  Nicholson,  chairman  of 
the  Gettysburg  Battlefield  Commission,  for 
kindly  reviewing  the  manuscript. 

Acknowledgment  is  also  made  of  the 
kindness  of  Houghton  Mifflin  Company, 
for  permission  to  use  some  paragraphs  from 
their  Life  of  John  Hay,  by  Thayer;  to  the 
Century  Company,  for  permission  to  quote 
from  Nicolay's  article,  "Lincoln  at  Gettys- 
burg," in  the  Century  Magazine,  February, 
1894;  and  to  the  Review  of  Reviews  Com- 
pany, for  permission  to  use  a  copyrighted 
photograph  from  their  Photographic  His- 
tory of  the  Civil  War. 

IN  AN  ESPECIAL  WAY  WE  DESIRE  TO  AC- 
KNOWLEDGE OUR  VERY  GREAT  INDEBTEDNESS 
TO  THE  REV.  FRANKLIN  ELLSWORTH 
TAYLOR,  MINISTER  IN  THE  FIRST  PRESBY- 
TERIAN CHURCH  OF  GETTYSBURG,  PENN- 
SYLVANIA. MR.  TAYLOR  is  AN  ARDENT  LOVER 
or  LINCOLN  AND  A  STUDENT  OF  LOCAL  HIS- 
TORY AND  TRADITION,  AND  THE  ASSISTANCE 
WHICH  HE  WAS  ABLE  TO  RENDER  IN  THE 
PREPARATION  OF  THIS  LITTLE  VOLUME  WAS 
ALTOGETHER  INVALUABLE. 

11 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  BACKGROUND  or  HISTORY 


THE  most  familiar  figure  of  history  is  the 
crowned  ruler,  the  pharaoh,  the  Csesar,  the 
emperor,  the  king  who  clothes  himself  with 
rich  and  gorgeous  robes,  who  separates  him- 
self from  the  multitudes  lest  they  should 
think  that  he  shared  with  them  some  com- 
mon quality,  who  hedges  himself  about  with 
the  claims  of  divinity  and  assumes  for  him- 
self an  authority  to  rule  which  none  may 
safely  presume  to  question. 

The  miracle  of  history  is  found  in  the  meek 
submission  of  millions  through  the  centuries 
to  the  self -assumed  authority  of  this  mortal 
god  who  commands  them  to  create  by  their 
toil  a  wealth  which  they  are  not  to  possess, 
to  build  palaces  in  which  they  are  not  to 
dwell,  to  erect  tombs  in  which  they  are  not  to 
be  buried,  to  fight  for  causes  which  they  are 

13 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

not  permitted  to  understand,  and  to  die  on 
bloody  battlefields  for  a  glory  of  which  they 
are  not  to  be  partakers. 

Parallel,  however,  with  the  assumption  of 
the  divine  right  of  kings  to  rule  there  has 
been,  down  the  years,  the  noble  protest  of 
rare  and  lonely  spirits.  But  through  long 
eras  of  history  the  voice  that  was  lifted  in 
objection  was  drowned  by  the  clamorous 
claims  of  nobility,  and  the  hand  that  was 
raised  in  protest  was  crushed  by  the  mailed 
arm  of  military  power.  Even  in  the  great 
Greek  and  Roman  periods  of  enlightenment, 
popular  government,  in  the  true  sense  of  the 
word,  did  not  exist. 

Historians  are  generally  agreed  that  pure 
representative  government  originated  among 
the  Teutonic  tribes  which  dwelt  in  the  forest 
regions  of  central  Europe.  The  history  of 
European  politics  for  two  thousand  years  is 
fundamentally  a  history  of  the  conflict  be- 
tween this  Teutonic  idea  that  government 
derives  its  authority  from  the  consent  of  the 
governed,  and  the  Roman  idea  of  the  divine 
right  of  kings.  In  the  end  the  theory  of  the 
Caesars  largely  triumphed  upon  the  Conti- 


THE  BACKGROUND  OF  HISTORY 

nent  even  in  the  land  where  representative 
government  had  its  birth. 

The  Teutonic  idea  was  carried  by  the  Ger- 
mans into  England  and  there  the  conflict 
between  that  idea  and  the  Roman  idea, 
though  not  less  bitter  than  the  conflict  upon 
the  Continent,  ended  differently.  Through 
all  those  early  centuries  of  their  history  the 
English  people  spoke  more  openly  and  con- 
tended more  successfully  for  popular  rights. 
In  1215  the  infuriated  barons  forced  King 
John  to  meet  them  on  that  green  meadow  by 
the  Thames,  twenty  miles  west  of  London, 
and  there  compelled  him  to  sign  the  Magna 
Charta.  The  wings  of  royalty  were  clipped 
at  Runnymede,  for  in  that  great  charter  was 
written  the  principle  that  there  cannot  be 
taxation  without  representation.  This  is  one 
of  the  two  great  fundamental  principles 
upon  which  popular  government  can  be 
built.  A  half  century  later  the  people  gained 
from  King  Edward  the  more  comprehensive 
principle,  the  right  of  representation  on  the 
ground  that  "what  concerns  all  must  be  ap- 
proved by  all." 

Although  these  two  basic  principles  of 
15 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

democracy  were  written  into  the  English 
constitution  in  the  thirteenth  century,  the 
English  people  have  not  been  able  wholly  to 
free  themselves  from  a  past  of  royal  tradi- 
tions and  translate  them  fully  into  the  law 
and  life  of  the  empire. 

II 

The  flower  of  popular  government  was 
transplanted  to  the  New  World,  where  in  a 
virgin  soil  and  in  an  atmosphere  free  from 
the  traditions  of  the  past,  it  grew  more  nat- 
urally and  blossomed  more  fully. 

It  was  not  their  respect  for  the  crowned 
heads  of  the  Old  World  that  led  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers  to  cross  the  sea.  The  opposite  was 
true.  They  were  hoping  to  find  in  the  New 
World  a  freedom  which  the  Old  World  did 
not  give,  and  as  the  years  went  by,  the  con- 
ditions that  made  up  their  new  life  worked  in 
them  and  in  their  children  a  perfect  change. 
The  wide  Atlantic  which  they  had  crossed  in 
a  slow  sailing  ship  made  European  thrones 
seem  remote,  and  in  that  remoteness  those 
thrones  lost  for  them  their  traditional  claims 
and  authority.  The  great  forests,  the  vast 
16 


THE  BACKGROUND  OF  HISTORY 

continental  areas,  the  unrestraint  of  their 
daily  life  caused  the  assumptions  of  royalty 
to  appear  absurd.  The  American  pioneer, 
too,  read  in  the  evening  his  Bible,  and  in  its 
cherished  pages  he  found  no  word  of  the  di- 
vinity of  kings,  but  much  of  the  divinity  of 
man;  he  found  nothing  there  of  the  superi- 
ority of  the  few,  but  much  of  the  worth  of 
the  individual,  and  much  of  the  equality  and 
brotherhood  of  men. 

All  this,  in  the  course  of  human  events, 
resulted  in  the  meeting  of  that  group  of  earn- 
est men  from  the  seaboard  colonies  at  Phila- 
delphia, in  1776,  who  affixed  their  names  to 
Jefferson's  immortal  document  which  de- 
clared, as  a  self-evident  truth,  that  all  men 
are  created  equal,  and  that  the  American 
colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  free 
and  independent. 

The  splendid  visions  and  the  masterful 
efforts  of  these  men  of  the  Revolutionary 
period,  and  of  the  constitutional  period  which 
immediately  followed  it,  are  worthily  re- 
flected in  the  purposes  and  sacrifices  of 
Washington.  Through  fiery  trial,  but  with 
unfailing  zeal,  led  on  by  visions  of  a  new 

17 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

order  and  a  new  era,  these  men  set  up  at  last 
on  the  shores  of  the  Western  world  a  gov- 
ernment by  the  people. 

Ill 

From  the  beginning,  however,  there  was  in 
the  American  experiment  an  element  that 
stood  in  the  way  of  the  fullest  development 
of  popular  government.  The  Union  was 
made  up  of  individual  States  and  in  many 
instances,  because  of  difference  of  interests, 
differences  of  religion,  differences  of  nation- 
ality and  of  tradition,  the  individuality  of  the 
States  was  thoroughly  emphasized.  Diver- 
gent views  at  length  arose  as  to  whether  the 
States,  or  the  people  of  the  States,  consti- 
tuted the  proper  units  of  the  Union.  Some- 
times it  was  New  England,  and  sometimes  it 
was  South  Carolina  that  emphasized  the 
importance  of  the  State ;  for  fifty  years  that 
debate  went  on  in  American  political  life 
without  a  conclusion.  The  problem  at  last 
became  inseparably  intertwined  with  the 
question  of  African  slavery,  against  which 
the  stars  in  their  courses  fought,  and  the  re- 
sult was  the  Civil  War  of  the  sixties. 
18 


THE  BACKGROUND  OF  HISTORY 

At  this  point  Abraham  Lincoln  enters 
upon  the  stage,  and  the  part  he  plays  in  the 
great  drama  is  best  appreciated  when  seen 
with  a  background,  not  simply  of  American 
political  history,  but  of  world-history  wherein 
is  told  man's  long  struggle  for  popular  gov- 
ernment. 

It  has  been  said  that  slavery  was  the  cause 
of  the  Civil  War.  It  has  been  said  too  that 
the  doctrine  of  State  Rights  precipitated  the 
conflict.  To  Lincoln,  the  supreme  question 
at  issue  was  that  of  the  survival  of  popular 
government.  It  was  the  question  whether  a 
minority  representing  a  local  opinion  was,  or 
was  not,  to  submit  to  the  voice  and  the  will 
of  the  majority. 

Lincoln  was  aware  that  majorities  were 
not  always  right  and  that  minorities  were 
not  always  wrong.  He  believed  in  consid- 
ering to  the  fullest  the  rights  of  minorities, 
and  in  free  speech  and  free  discussion 
whereby  minorities  might  at  any  time  be 
converted  into  majorities.  But  he  held 
that  popular  government  could  exist  among 
men  only  when  the  voice  of  the  majority 
prevailed. 

19 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

In  May,  1861,  Lincoln  made  a  statement 
to  his  secretary,  John  Hay,  which  the  young 
man  fortunately  preserved  in  his  diary :  "For 
my  own  part  I  consider  the  central  idea  pre- 
vailing in  this  struggle  is  the  necessity  that 
is  upon  us  of  proving  that  popular  govern- 
ment is  not  an  absurdity.  We  must  settle 
that  question  now,  whether,  in  a  free  govern- 
ment, the  minority  have  a  right  to  break  up 
the  government  whenever  they  choose.  If 
we  fail,  it  will  go  far  to  prove  the  incapability 
of  the  people  to  govern  themselves.  Taking 
the  government  as  we  found  it,  we  will  see  if 
the  majority  can  preserve  it." 

Lincoln's  whole  nature  rebelled  against 
the  idea  of  human  slavery,  yet  in  his  famous 
letter  to  Horace  Greeley  he  said  that  he 
would  preserve  slavery  if  by  so  doing  he 
could  save  the  Union;  and  with  him  saving 
the  Union  was  synonymous  with  preserving 
a  government  of  the  people. 

It  was  a  hard  fate  that  put  at  the  head  of 
affairs  in  the  hour  of  bitterness  and  strife  this 
tender-hearted  man  who  could  not  hear  the 
troubled  cry  of  little  birds  in  the  rain  with- 
out attempting  to  relieve  their  distress.  Yet 

20 


THE  BACKGROUND  OF  HISTORY 

through  four  red  years  he  spoke  the  word,  as 
necessity  demanded,  that  robbed  ten  thou- 
sand homes  of  their  boys  and  sent  them  forth 
to  a  hundred  battlefields  to  suffer  and  to  die. 
His  stalwart  shoulders  bent  beneath  the  cruel 
load  which  duty  imposed,  his  face  grew  thin 
and  haggard,  his  heart  ached,  but  did  not  fail 
him  as  through  the  storm  he  held  the  ship  to 
its  course. 

When  Stanton  saw  the  dying  Lincoln  on 
the  night  of  April  14,  1865,  in  the  house  on 
Tenth  Street,  his  breast  and  shoulders  bared, 
he  called  the  attention  of  those  about  the  bed 
to  the  President's  arms  which  were  the  arms 
of  a  giant.  Those  sinews  grew  when  he 
swung  the  ax  in  the  woods  of  Indiana  and 
the  beetle  in  the  rail-splitting  days  in  Illinois. 
By  his  very  physical  make-up,  as  well  as  by 
all  the  associations  and  all  the  fundamental 
interests  and  sympathies  of  his  life,  he  was 
inseparably  linked  with  the  life  of  the  com- 
mon people.  And  he  suffered  and  strove  to 
preserve  in  the  New  World  a  government 
of  the  people  not  for  its  own  sake,  but  be- 
cause he  believed  that  it  was  under  such  a 
government  that  the  common  people  were 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

able  to  obtain,  in  the  largest  measure,  the 
privileges  of  life,  and  to  find  the  widest  doors 
for  the  freest  and  fullest  self-expression  and 
self -development. 

IV 

The  great  war  had  gone  on  through 
anxious  and  bloody  years  and  there  had  been 
no  decisive  result.  Lee,  at  length,  in  the 
summer  of  1863,  determined  to  strike  a  fatal 
blow  by  leading  his  victorious  army  into  the 
very  heart  of  the  North.  He  crossed  the 
Potomac  and  moved  northward ;  Meade  and 
the  Union  Army  followed.  In  southern 
Pennsylvania,  eight  miles  from  the  Mary- 
land line,  was  Gettysburg.  This  little  Ger- 
man village  of  thirteen  hundred  people,  with 
its  red  brick  homes  and  its  whitewashed 
fences  set  in  a  landscape  of  fertile  fields  and 
of  wooded  hills,  had  been  for  decades  the 
scene  of  rural  peace  and  of  quiet  prosperity. 
Out  from  this  village  radiated  a  dozen  roads, 
as  spokes  from  the  hub  of  a  wheel,  reaching 
to  almost  every  point  of  the  compass.  Lee, 
who  was  in  southern  Pennsylvania,  and 
Meade,  who  was  in  northern  Maryland,  in 


THE  BACKGROUND  OF  HISTORY 

trying  to  locate  each  other,  and  also  in  at- 
tempting to  concentrate  their  scattered 
forces,  moved  their  divisions  along  these  con- 
verging roads.  On  the  first  of  July,  unex- 
pectedly to  both,  the  two  armies  were  thrown 
together  in  a  titanic  struggle  at  Gettysburg. 
For  three  days  the  battle  raged.  Unsur- 
passed heroism  marked  the  fighting  on 
both  sides,  and  death  reaped  a  frightful 
harvest. 

In  the  late  afternoon  of  July  3,  on  the 
wooded  slope  that  marks  the  western  margin 
of  the  battlefield,  where  now  stands  the  mon- 
ument of  Virginia,  General  Lee,  despair 
written  in  every  line  of  his  care-worn  but 
noble  face,  leaned  heavily  upon  his  faithful 
horse  and  whispered  in  broken  accents:  "It 
is  too  bad.  Oh,  it  is  too  bad."  On  the  open 
field  a  mile  in  front  of  him,  thousands  of  his 
gray-clad  soldier  boys  lay  dead.  Pickett  had 
made  his  immortal  charge,  and  it  had  failed. 
The  gray  ranks  had  swept  on  like  ocean 
waves  that  with  even  crests  moved  proudly 
forward,  but  they  had  struck  the  unyielding 
barriers  of  the  Union  defense  on  Cemetery 
Hill,  and  had  been  hurled  back  broken  and 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

spent.  The  high-water  mark  of  the  Rebel- 
lion had  been  reached,  and  the  story  of  the 
Confederacy  from  that  time  forward  is  the 
story  of  an  ebbing  tide. 

Pickett,  in  that  dark  hour,  wrote  his  sweet- 
heart back  in  Virginia:  "Our  foe  believes,  as 
we  do,  that  our  cause  is  lost." 

Both  Lee  and  Pickett  prophetically  saw 
in  the  gloom  of  defeat  what  a  Southern  poet, 
in  the  light  which  the  years  have  brought, 
more  clearly  discerned: 

In  vain  the  Tennesseean  set 

His  breast  against  the  bayonet; 

In  vain  Virginia  charged  and  raged, 
A  tigress  in  her  wrath  uncaged, 

Till  all  the  hill  was  red  and  wet. 

Above  the  bayonets  mixed  and  crossed 

Men  saw  a  gray,  gigantic  ghost 
Receding  through  the  battlecloud, 
And  heard  across  the  tempest  loud 

The  death  cry  of  a  nation  lost. 

The  brave  went  down !  without  disgrace 
They  leaped  to  ruin's  red  embrace. 

They  only  heard  Fame's  thunder  wake, 
And  saw  the  dazzling  sunburst  break 
In  smiles  on  Glory's  bloody  face. 


THE  BACKGROUND  OF  HISTORY 

They  fell,  who  lifted  up  a  hand 
And  bade  the  sun  in  heaven  to  stand. 
They  smote  and  fell,  who  set  the  bars 
Against  the  progress  of  the  stars, 
And  stayed  the  march  of  motherland. 

The  war  went  on.  The  battles  of  Cold 
Harbor,  and  the  Wilderness,  and  Spottsyl- 
vania  were  afterward  fought,  and  Sherman 
made  his  march  to  the  sea.  But  after  the 
failure  of  Pickett's  charge  on  July  3,  at 
Gettysburg,  Appomattox  was  inevitable. 

Gettysburg  was  decisive  in  the  American 

•   '  "     *F  — —  .-,,,  ,^?^  

Civil  War ;  it  was  decisive  too  in  that  cen- 
tury-long  world-struggle  for  popular  gov- 

ernment. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  NATIONAL  CEMETERY 

WHEN  the  Union  Army,  immediately 
after  the  battle,  moved  southward  in  pursuit 
of  the  retreating  forces  of  Lee,  more  than 
twenty  thousand  wounded  soldiers,  seven 
thousand  of  whom  were  Confederates,  were 
[Jsf  t  behind  at  Gettysburg.  To  properly  pro- 
vide for  this  large  number  of  men,  most  of 
whom  were  in  need  of  immediate  attention, 
the  medical  department  of  the  army  was 
wholly  inadequate.  Churches,  public  build- 
ings, private  homes,  and  barns  in  the  country 
along  Rock  Creek  and  Willoughby's  Run 
were  turned  into  temporary  hospitals,  and  all 
the  resources  both  of  hand  and  heart  of  the 
little  village  were  taxed  to  the  utmost. 
Shortly  after  the  battle,  Governor  Curtin, 
the  energetic  executive  of  Pennsylvania,  vis- 
ited the  scene  to  give  such  relief  as  the  State 
had  to  offer.  Before  returning  to  Harris- 
burg  he  appointed  David  Wills,  a  prominent 
and  public-spirited  citizen  of  Gettysburg,  to 
26 


MR.  DAVID  WILLS 
Who  first  suggested  the  idea  of  a  National  Cemetery  at  Gettysburg 


THE  NATIONAL  CEMETERY 

act  as  the  representative  of  the  State,  and 
authorized  him  to  meet  the  unusual  condi- 
tions in  the  most  effective  way  that  his  judg- 
ment dictated. 

Among  the  many  problems  calling  for  an 
early  solution  was  the  burial  of  the  soldiers 
who  were  daily  dying  in  the  temporary  hos- 
pitals of  the  town.  The  problem  presented 
by  the  deplorable  condition  of  the  graves  of 
those  who  had  fallen  in  the  conflict  also  called 
for  immediate  attention. 

^- —  i 

The  battle  had  been  fought  in  the  swelter- 
ing heat  of  early  July,  and  sanitary,  as  well 
as  military,  necessity  required  the  burial  of 
the  dead  at  the  places  where  they  had  fallen. 
The  Confederate  Army  withdrew  on  the 
night  of  July  third;  in  the  pouring  rain  of 
the  Fourth,  parties  made  up  of  both  soldiers 
and  citizens  were  sent  out  to  bury  those  who 
lay  exposed  upon  the  field.  The  result  was 
that  the  countryside  was  dotted  with  more 
than  five  thousand  shallow  and  inadequate 
graves.  UBy  McPherson's  woods,  where  the 
Iron  Brigade  made  good  its  slogan,  "We 
have  come  to  stay,"  there  were  long  trenches 
filled  with  dead.  jThere  were  rows  of  graves 

27 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

in  the  Wheatfield,  and  along  the  fences  by 
the  Peach  Orchard,  and  on  the  edge  of  the 
woods  back  of  the  Devil's  Den.  There  were 
graves  on  the  slopes  of  Gulp's  Hill,  and  in 
the  low  places  by  Rock  Creek,  and  in  the 
woods  about  Spangler's  Spring  and  along 
the  hedges  and  broken  stone  walls  of  the  cul- 
tivjited  fields  of  Cemetery  Ridge. 
/  In  the  low  ground  of  the  Valley  of  Death 
at  the  foot  of  the  Round  Tops,  weeks  after 
the  battle,  hands  and  shoes  protruded  from 
graves  too  thinly  covered.{  Brady,  the 
war  photographer,  when  at  Gettysburg  late 
in  November,  found  among  the  rocks  of 
Devil's  Den  the  body  of  a  sharpshooter,  his 
rusty  rifle  still  beside  him,  lying  undisturbed 
where  he  had  fallen  four  months  before. 
Forty  years  after  the  battle  a  skeleton  was 
found  in  the  undergrowth  of  an  unfre- 
quented part  of  the  field  where  some 
wounded  soldier  had  crept  for  shelter. 
'These  conditions  led  Mr.  Wills  to  write 
Governor  Curtin,  on  July  17,  advocating  the 
purchase  of  a  strip  of  ground  to  serve  as  a 
national  cemetery  to  which  the  occupants  of 
these  scattered  and  unmarked  graves  might 

28 


"THE  LAST  FULL  MEASURE  OF  DEVOTION" 

A  photograph  of  the  Wheatfield  taken  by  Brady  on  July  5,  18G3,  before  the  burial  parties 
arrived.  The  Wheatfield  was  the  scene  of  some  of  the  fiercest  fighting  between  the  forces  of 
General  Sickles  and  of  General  Longstreet  on  the  afternoon  of  July  2. 


THE  NATIONAL  CEMETERY 

be  brought  for  proper  interment,  and  where 
a  suitable  monument  might  afterward  be 
erected  to  commemorate  their  heroism  and 
their  secrifices.  The  governor  approved  the 
plan  and  authorized  Mr.  Wills  to  write  to  the 
governors  of  the  seventeen  States  whose  sol- 
diers with  those  of  Pennsylvania  had  taken 
part  in  the  battle,  asking  for  their  coopera- 
tion. Fifteen  of  the  governors  replied  sig- 
nifying their  approval  of  the  plan  suggested. 

After  some  further  correspondence,  Mr. 
Wills  purchased  an  irregular  piece  of  ground 
containing  seventeen  acres  adjoining  the 
citizens'  cemetery.  The  ground  selected 
one  of  the  highest  places  of  the  field  from 
which  a  sweeping  view  of  the  whole  battle 
ground  can  be  had.  During  the  conflict  this 
spot  had  formed  the  key  to  the  Union  line  of 
defense  and  the  many  batteries  stationed 
there  had  swept  with  a  storm  of  iron  the 
whole  Confederate  line.  It  had  been  too  the 
target  of  the  opponent's  guns ;  its  sward  had 
been  torn  by  shot  and  shell  and  its  soil  conse- 
crated by  the  blood  of  the  slain. 

The  ground  selected  was  carefully  plotted 
by   a   competent   landscape   gardener,    the 

29 


ld/ 
he/ 

JgJ 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

graves  being  arranged  in  great  half-circles 
about  a  center  where  space  was  reserved  as  a 
site  for  a  fitting  monument.  Some  felt,  and 
among  them  Mr.  Wills,  that  as  those  who 
had  died  had  fought  for  a  common  cause  and 
had  fallen  side  by  side  regardless  of  the  geo- 
graphical localities  from  which  they  had 
come,  so  now  in  this  final  resting  place  they 
should  sleep  side  by  side,  no  distinction  as  to 
their  native  States  being  made.  There  were 
those,  however,  who  felt  that  the  soldiers 
from  each  State  should  be  buried  together, 
and  this  idea  in  the  end  prevailed.  The 
ground  was  divided  into  twenty-two  sec- 
tions: one  for  the  soldiers  of  the  regular 
army;  three  for  those  whose  identity  could 
not  be  discovered,  and  the  remaining  eigh- 
teen for  the  dead  of  the  eighteen  States 
whose  soldiers  had  taken  part  in  the  battle. 

Pennsylvania  had  the  largest  number  of 
soldiers  engaged  in  this  conflict,  but  New 
York's  section  in  the  cemetery  contains  the 
greatest  number  of  graves.  Nearly  one 
fourth  of  all  those  buried  at  Gettysburg  came 
from  the  Empire  State.  Hundreds  of  the 
Pennsylvania  soldiers  who  fell  were  from  the 
30 


THE  NATIONAL  CEMETERY 

vicinity,  or  from  communities  not  far  distant, 
and  immediately  after  the  battle  friends 
claimed  them  and  carried  them  back  to  sleep 
in  village  or  country  cemeteries  amid  the 
scenes  of  their  youth.  A  less  kindly  fate  be- 
fell those  whose  homes  and  whose  friends 
were  farther  away. 

The  work  of  removing  the  bodies  from  the 
various  parts  of  the  battlefield  to  the  ceme- 
tery began  on  October  27,  and  from  fifty  to 
sixty  removals  were  made  each  day.  This 
was  carefully  done  under  the  direction  of  Mr. 
Wills,  save  in  the  case  of  Massachusetts, 
whose  soldiers  were  moved  by  representa- 
tives sent  to  Gettysburg  by  the  governor  of 
that  State. 

As  the  plans  for  the  cemetery  more  fully 
developed,  it  was  felt  desirable  that  cere- 
monies of  an  imposing  character  should  mark 
the  formal  setting  aside  of  this  ground  to  its 
sacred  use.  Accordingly,  arrangements  were 
made  for  exercises  of  dedication  to  take  place 
September  23.  The  Hon.  Edward  Everett, 
former  governor  of  Massachusetts  and  recog- 
nized as  one  of  the  leading  orators  of  the  day, 
was  invited  to  deliver  the  address.  This  was 
31 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

intended  to  be  the  chief  feature  of  the  pro- 
gram. Mr.  Everett,  however,  in  reply  to  the 
invitation  extended  by  Mr.  Wills,  who  acted 
for  the  Cemetery  Commission,  wrote  that 
pressing  duties  would  make  it  impossible  for 
him  to  be  present  on  the  day  named,  but  if  a 
later  date  would  meet  with  their  convenience, 
he  would  gladly  accede  to  their  request.  In 
view  of  work  he  had  to  do  and  of  the  time 
necessary  to  make  adequate  preparation  for 
his  address,  he  named  November  19  as  the 
earliest  day  that  he  could  be  present.  This 
was  accepted  by  the  Commission  as  the  date 
for  the  dedication. 

Invitations  to  be  present  on  this  occasion 
were  sent  to  the  President  and  his  Cabinet,^, 
and  to  many  others  prominent  in  public  life. 
Among  those  invited  was  General  George  G. 
Meade,  who  commanded  the  Union  Army  at 
the  battle  of  Gettysburg,  but  duties  at  the 
front  made  it  necessary  for  him  to  decline. 

Mr.  Clark  E.  Carr,  of  Galesburg,  Illinois' 
representative  on  the  Commission  which  had 
the  program  of  dedication  in  charge,  says 
that  in  the  invitation  sent  to  Mr.  Lincoln  he 
was  not  asked  to  take  part  in  the  exercises  of 

32 


THE  NATIONAL  CEMETERY 

the  day,  as  it  was  generally  felt  that  the 
duties  of  the  President  at  Washington  at 
that  time  would  make  it  impossible  for  him 
to  be  present ;  and,  too,  while  the  members  of 
the  Commission  were  aware  that  Mr.  Lin- 
coln was  a  successful  speaker  on  the  political 
platform,  it  did  not  occur  to  them  that  he  was 
adapted  to  make  an  address  such  as  the  dedi- 
catory ceremony  demanded.  A  little  later, 
however,  the  members  of  the  Commission 
decided  to  ask  Mr.  Lincoln  "to  make  a  few 
dedicatory  remarks.'j[  On  November  2,  six 
weeks  after  Mr.Everett  had  been  invited,  and 
only  two  weeks  before  the  dedication,  Mr. 
Wills,  at  the  request  of  the  Commission,  sent 
the  following  letter  to  President  Lincoln : 

"The  several  States  having  soldiers  in  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  who  were  killed  at 
the  battle  of  Gettysburg,  or  have  since  died 
at  various  hospitals  which  were  established 
in  the  vicinity,  have  procured  grounds  on  a 
prominent  part  of  the  field  for  a  cemetery, 
and  are  having  the  dead  removed  to  them 
and  properly  buried.  These  grounds  will  be 
consecrated  and  set  apart  to  this  sacred  pur- 
pose, by  appropriate  ceremonies,  on  Thurs- 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

day,  the  19th  inst.  Hon.  Edward  Everett 
will  deliver  the  oration.  I  am  authorized  by 
the  governors  of  the  different  States  to  invite 
you  to  be  present  and  participate  in  these 
ceremonies,  which  will  be  very  imposing  and 
solemnly  impressive.  It  is  the  desire  that 
after  the  oration,  you,  as  Chief  Executive  of 
the  Nation,  formally  set  apart  these  grounds 
to  their  sacred  use  by  a  few  appropriate  re- 
marks. It  will  be  a  source  of  great  gratifica- 
tion to  the  many  widows  and  orphans  that 
have  been  made  almost  friendless  by  the 
great  battle  here,  to  have  you  here  person- 
ally ;  and  it  will  kindle  anew  in  the  breasts  of 
the  comrades  of  these  brave  dead,  who  are 
now  in  tented  field  or  nobly  meeting  the  foe 
in  the  front,  a  confidence  that  they  who  sleep 
in  death  on  the  battlefield  are  not  forgotten 
by  those  highest  in  authority;  and  they  will 
feel  that,  should  their  fate  be  the  same,  their 
remains  will  not  be  uncared  for.  We  hope 
you  will  be  able  to  be  present  to  perform  this 
last  solemn  act  to  the  soldier-dead  on  this 
battlefield." 

This  letter  is  interesting,  not  simply  be- 
cause it  is  a  link  in  a  chain  of  important  his- 


THE  NATIONAL  CEMETERY 

toric  events,  but  because  it  is  more  than  pos- 
sible that  some  of  the  sentiments  expressed 
by  Mr.  Wills  suggested  to  Lincoln  the  line 
of  thought  which  he  followed  in  his  great 
address.  — -\ 

Lincoln  visited  Antietam  shortly  after  the    \ 
battle.    He  went  to  Petersburg  several  times 
while  the  army  was  there.    He  was  among 
the  first  to  enter  the  city  of  Richmond  on  its 
fall  in  the  spring  of  1865.    It  was  but  natural 
that  he  should  desire  to  visit  those  places 
which  had  been  the  scenes  of  great  events  and     r 
which  in  anxious  hours  he  had  visited  a  thou-    I 
sand  times  in  his  thought. 

Lee's  invasion  of  Pennsylvania  and 
Meade's  movement  northward  in  pursuit 
were  watched  by  Lincoln  with  great  anxiety. 
When  at  last  the  two  great  armies  met  at 
Gettysburg,  with  characteristic  insight  he 
felt  that  the  battle  would  be  decisive.  It  was 
the  President's  conviction  that  if  Meade  were 
defeated,  the  Union  cause  would  be  lost. 
Just  how  heavy  upon  him  was  the  agony  of 
suspense  during  those  anxious  days  is,  in  a 
measure,  revealed  by  a  conversation  of  his, 
the  authenticity  of  which  has  been  vouched 

35 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

for  by  repeated  declarations  of  General 
Daniel  E.  Sickles  and  of  General  James  F. 
Rusling. 

General  Sickles  was  seriously  wounded  at 
Gettysburg  and  was  taken  at  once  to  Wash- 
ington. On  Sunday,  July  5,  two  days  after 
the  battle,  Lincoln  visited  him  at  the  hospital 
where  he  was  being  cared  for.  As  a  result  of 
a  conversation  which  led  up  to  it,  the  Presi- 
dent said  to  General  Sickles,  in  the  presence 
of  General  Rusling,  "In  the  pinch  of  your 
campaign  up  there,  when  everybody  seemed 
panic-stricken,  and  nobody  could  tell  what 
was  going  to  happen,  oppressed  by  the 
gravity  of  our  affairs,  I  went  to  my  room  one 
day,  and  I  locked  the  door,  and  got  down  on 
my  knees  before  Almighty  God,  and  prayed 
Jojiim  mightily  for  victory  at  Gettysburg." 

It  is  probable  that  Lincoln  was  desirous 
of  visiting  this  Pennsylvania  battlefield,  over 
which  his  thought  in  those  crucial  days  had 
so  anxiously  hovered,  and  when  he  received 
the  invitation  to  take  part  in  the  exercises  of 
the  dedication  of  the  cemetery  there,  he  at 
once  accepted.  Unfortunately,  his  letter  has 
been  lost. 

36 


CHAPTER  III 

FROM  WHITE  HOUSE  TO  BATTLEFIELD 

MR.  STANTON,  Secretary  of  War,  notified 
Mr.  Lincoln  on  November  17  that  he  had 
made  arrangements  for  a  special  train  over 
the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Road  to  carry  the 
President  and  his  party  to  Gettysburg.  The 
train  was  to  leave  Washington  at  six  o'clock 
on  Thursday,  the  day  of  the  dedication, 
reaching  Gettysburg  at  noon,  thus  giving  the 
party  two  hours  on  the  battlefield  before  the 
exercises  were  to  begin. 

The  President  was  not  wholly  satisfied 
with  this  schedule  and  returned  to  Mr.  Stan- 
ton  his  note  with  this  written  across  the  face : 
"I  do  not  like  this  arrangement.  I  do  not 
wish  to  so  go  that  by  the  slightest  accident 
we  fail  entirely :  and,  at  best,  the  whole  to  be 
a  running  of  the  gauntlet.  But  any  way." 

Mr.  Stanton  acted  upon  this  suggestion. 
The  schedule  was  rearranged,  and  the  train 
left  Washington  at  noon  on  Wednesday,  in- 

37 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

stead  of  on  the  morning  of  Thursday  as  orig- 
inally planned. 

The  President  was  accompanied  by  three 
members  of  the  Cabinet :  Mr.  Seward,  Secre- 
tary of  State,  Mr.  Usher,  Secretary  of  Trea- 
sury, and  Mr.  Blair,  Postmaster-General; 
also  by  Mr.  Nicolay,  his  private  secretary, 
and  Mr.  Hay,  his  assistant  secretary. 
Among  the  guests  were  two  foreign  min- 
isters, several  legation  secretaries,  besides 
army  officers,  military  guards  of  honor,  mem- 
bers of  the  Marine  Band  and  newspaper  cor- 
respondents. Captain  H.  A.  Wise,  of  the 
navy,  and  his  wife,  who  was  the  daughter  of 
Mr.  Edward  Everett,  were  also  in  the  party. 

The  train  was  composed  of  four  coaches 
drawn  by  a  gaily  decorated  locomotive.  The 
last  coach  was  a  directors'  car,  and  one 
third  was  partitioned  off  in  the  rear  into  a 
separate  compartment  with  seats  arranged 
about  the  walls.  When  the  train  left  Wash- 
ington, Lincoln  with  others  occupied  this 
compartment. 

Lieutenant  Cochrane,  of  the  Marine 
Corps,  who  accompanied  the  Marine  Band, 
says  that  Lincoln's  face  on  this  occasion  was 
38 


WHITE  HOUSE  TO  BATTLEFIELD 

drawn  and  sad,  and  that  he  appeared  unusu- 
ally quiet.  He  spent  some  time  after  the 
train  started  in  reading  the  morning  copy  of 
the  New  York  Herald,  which  Mr.  Cochrane 
had  furnished  him.  Later,  as  he  looked  out 
of  the  window  over  an  arm  of  the  Chesapeake 
Bay,  the  President  commented  upon  the 
change  which  had  taken  place  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  shipping  since  the  time  he  first 
saw  those  waters  late  in  the  autumn  of  1847, 
when,  as  a  newly  elected  Congressman  from 
Illinois,  he  was  making  his  first  visit  to  the 
nation's  capital. 

Lincoln  had  not  been  in  Baltimore  since 
the  night  of  February  23,  1861,  when  he 
passed  through  on  his  way  to  his  first  inau- 
gural. It  will  be  remembered  that  at  that 
time  he  traveled  on  a  train  preceding  by  sev- 
eral hours  that  upon  which  he  was  expected. 
This  arrangement  was  made  at  the  sugges- 
tion of  Mr.  Seward  to  circumvent  any  act  of 
violence,  as  it  had  been  rumored  for  several 
days  that  a  lawless  band  of  Southern  sym- 
pathizers in  Baltimore  had  determined  that 
the  President-elect  should  not  pass  through 
that  city  alive.  Baltimore  was  still  a  center 
39 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

of  disloyalty,  and  as  the  Presidential  train 
approached  the  city  on  its  way  to  Gettys- 
burg, Seward  grew  visibly  uneasy.  Nothing 
unusual  happened,  however.  Only  a  few 
people  were  at  the  station  when  the  cars  were 
shifted  from  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  to  the 
Northern  Central  Road.  The  Second 
United  States  Artillery  Band,  one  of  the 
oldest  and  finest  bands  in  the  army,  several 
military  staffs  with  their  suites,  and  others 
joined  the  party  at  Baltimore.  Among  this 
number  was  E.  W.  Andrews,  chief  of  staff  to 
General  W.  W.  Morris,  of  the  regular  army, 
in  command  of  the  defenses  of  Baltimore. 
In  his  recollections  of  this  occasion  he  states 
that  he  at  once  sought  out  Mr.  Lincoln  and 
conveyed  to  him  the  regrets  of  his  chief,  who 
on  account  of  a  physical  disability  was  unable 
to  attend  the  Gettysburg  exercises.  Some- 
thing in  what  Mr.  Andrews  said  suggested 
to  Mr.  Lincoln  a  humorous  incident  touching 
one  of  the  army  officers,  which  he  told  to 
Secretary  Blair  with  much  merriment.  On 
board  the  train  was  a  gentleman  who  was  on 
his  way  to  Gettysburg  to  visit  the  spot  on 
Little  Round  Top  where  his  boy  had  fallen 
40 


WHITE  HOUSE  TO  BATTLEFIELD 

in  the  battle.  Lincoln  expressed  to  him  the 
fear  that  a  visit  to  the  scene  of  his  son's  death 
would  but  open  anew  the  wound  which  his 
death  caused.  "Oh,  my  dear  sir,"  said  the 
President,  "if  we  had  reached  the  end  of  such 
sacrifices  and  had  nothing  left  for  us  to  do 
but  to  place  garlands  on  the  graves  of  those 
who  have  already  fallen  we  could  give  thanks 
even  in  the  midst  of  our  tears.  But  there 
are  sacrifices  yet  to  be  made  before  this 
dreadful  war  is  over."  John  Hay  in  his  re- 
cently published  diary  says  that  Wayne 
MacVeagh  became  engaged  in  conversation 
with  the  President  on  the  journey  and  in- 
dulged in  some  rather  radical  talk  regarding 
affairs  in  Missouri,  but  ceased  when  he  real- 
ized that  he  had  gone  too  far.  Thus  Lin- 
coln mingled  with  the  party  and  entered  into 
conversation  on  subjects  both  light  and  seri- 
ous as  the  time  rapidly  passed. 

At  Hanover  Junction,  forty-six  miles 
from  Baltimore,  where  the  line  to  Gettys- 
burg branches  off  from  the  Northern  Cen- 
tral, they  were  to  meet  the  train  from  Har- 
risburg  bearing  Governor  Curtin  and  most 
of  the  governors  of  the  other  States  who 

41 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

were  to  attend  the  exercises,  and  the  whole 
party  was  to  journey  together  over  the  re- 
maining thirty-two  miles  to  their  destination. 
A  slight  accident,  however,  delayed  the  gov- 
ernor's train  and  the  Presidential  party  pro- 
ceeded alone,  reaching  Gettysburg  about 
dark. 

When  Mr.  Wills  sent  his  official  letter  to 
Mr.  Lincoln  inviting  him  to  take  a  part  in 
the  dedicatory  exercises,  he  inclosed  on  a  sep- 
arate page  a  personal  note  in  which  he  stated 
that  as  the  hotels  of  the  village  would  be 
crowded  on  that  occasion,  he  desired  Mr. 
Lincoln  to  come  to  his  home  and  be  enter- 
tained there  during  his  stay,  where  Governor 
Curtin  and  the  Hon.  Edward  Everett  would 
be  fellow  guests. 

When  the  train  reached  Gettysburg  the 
President  was  escorted  to  the  home  of  Mr. 
Wills,  which  was  a  substantial  residence  lo- 
cated on  the  Public  Square  in  the  heart  of  the 
little  village. 


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iuilj 


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<    -^^^-g  <u_c  is 


' 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  NIGHT  AT  GETTYSBURG 

THE  village  of  Gettysburg  was  crowded 
with  visitors  on  the  night  of  the  eighteenth. 
The  Adams  County  Sentinel,  the  weekly 
newspaper  of  Gettysburg,  in  its  issue  of 
November  24,  1863,  says:  "The  influx  of 
strangers  began  on  Monday,  and  the  trains 
became  heavier  and  heavier  as  the  day  of 
consecration  approached.  On  Wednesday 
and  Wednesday  night  trains  arrived  every 
few  hours,  swelling  the  crowds  to  immense 
proportions." 

The  people  were  drawn  here  primarily  by 
the  dedication  exercises  which  were  to  take 
place  on  Thursday  and  by  the  large  number 
of  public  men  of  national  reputation,  from 
the  President  down,  who  were  announced  to 
be  present.  But  thousands  came  from  a  de- 
sire to  see  the  battlefield,  where  still,  on  every 
hand,  were  striking  and  gruesome  evidences 
of  the  bloody  conflict  of  the  preceding  July. 
A  local  paper  of  November  24,  1863,  in 

43 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

speaking  of  the  condition  of  the  field,  says: 
"The  ground  about  Cemetery  Hill,  Gulp's 
Hill,  the  Round  Top  mountain,  and  the 
Taneytown  road  is  yet  strewn  with  the  re- 
mains and  relics  of  the  fearful  struggle. 
Ragged  and  muddy  knapsacks,  canteens, 
cups,  haversacks,  threadbare  stockings  trod- 
den in  the  mud,  old  shoes,  pistols,  holsters, 
bayonet  sheaths,  and  here  and  there  frag- 
ments of  gray  and  blue  jackets — mournful 
and  appealing  mementos  of  the  civil  strife — 
are  yet  to  be  seen.  Grave  marks  of  unrecog- 
nized heroes  are  in  every  quarter  of  the  field, 
and  rows  of  graves  range  along  the  line  of 
the  stone  or  wooden  fences  which  had  af- 
forded shelter  to  the  sharpshooters.  A 
ravine,  up  which  the  Confederates  had 
charged  toward  the  stone  fence  flanking 
Gulp's  Hill,  is  yet  full  of  these  forlorn  rem- 
nants of  the  battle." 

The  night  preceding  the  dedication  was 
warm  and  clear;  and  bright  moonlight 
flooded  the  village.  After  the  evening  meal 
the  various  bands  which  had  arrived  to  take 
part  in  the  exercises  of  the  following  day, 
began  to  give  open-air  concerts  of  patriotic 


THE  NIGHT  AT  GETTYSBURG 

selections.  Soon  a  serenading  party  was 
formed  and  headed  by  a  band  of  music  went 
from  place  to  place  where  distinguished 
guests  were  being  entertained,  and  speeches 
were  called  for.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  visited  at 
the  Wills  home.  After  the  serenaders, 
prominent  among  whom  was  a  company  of 
college  boys  from  the  local  Lutheran  institu- 
tion, had  waited  long,  the  evening  meal  being 
probably  not  finished,  Lincoln  appeared  for 
a  brief  minute  on  the  doorstep  of  the  York 
Street  entrance  and  made  a  few  remarks. 

The  serenaders  then  went  to  the  home  of 
Mr.  Harper,  which  was  around  the  corner 
and  faced  the  Public  Square,  where  Mr. 
Seward  was  a  guest.  Mr.  Seward  responded 
at  some  length,  dwelling  in  a  general  way 
upon  the  issues  of  the  war,  and  expressing 
the  hope  of  an  early  return  of  peace.  Others 
were  serenaded  and  the  speech-making  and 
the  noise  lasted  until  a  late  hour  of  the  night. 

The  diary  of  John  Hay  contains  a  very 
vivid  description  of  some  of  the  events  of  that 
rather  boisterous  evening,  and  tends  to  give 
a  very  human  setting  to  this  historic  incident : 

"At  Gettysburg  the  President  went  to 
45 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

Mr.  Wills,  who  expected  him,  and  our  party 
broke  up.  MacVeagh,  young  Stanton,  and 
I  foraged  around  for  awhile — walked  out  to 
the  College,  got  a  chafing  dish  of  oysters, 
then  some  supper,  and,  finally,  loafing 
around  to  the  Courthouse,  where  Lamon  was 
holding  a  meeting  of  marshals,  we  found 
Forney  and  went  around  to  his  place." 

"Forney  was  particularly  bitter  against 
Montgomery  Blair;  MacVeagh  was  telling 
him  that  he  pitched  into  the  President  com- 
ing up  and  told  him  some  truths.  He  said 
the  President  got  a  good  deal  of  that,  from 
time  to  time,  and  he  needed  it." 

"We  went  out  after  a  while  following  the 
music  to  hear  the  serenades.  The  President 
appeared  at  the  door,  said  a  half-dozen  words 
meaning  nothing  and  went  in.  Seward,  who 
was  staying  around  the  corner  at  Harper's, 
was  called  out  and  spoke  so  indistinctly  that 
I  did  not  hear  a  word  of  what  he  was  saying. 
We  went  to  Forney's  room,  having  picked 
up  Nicolay.  Nicolay  sang  his  little  song  of 
the  'Three  Thieves,'  and  then  we  sang  John 
Brown.  At  last  we  proposed  that  Forney 
should  make  a  speech,  and  two  or  three 
46 


THE  NIGHT  AT  GETTYSBURG 

started  out  to  get  a  band  to  serenade  him. 
I  staid  with  him,  as  did  Stanton  and  Mac- 
Veagh.  He  was  still  growling  quietly,  and  I 
thought  he  was  going  to  do  something  im- 
prudent." 

Then  follows  an  account  of  the  serenade 
and  of  Forney's  speech,  in  which  drollery 
and  gravity  mingled.  When  the  people 
greeted  him  with  shouts  he  said :  "My  friends, 
these  are  the  first  hearty  cheers  I  have  heard 
to-night.  You  gave  no  such  cheers  to  your 
President  down  the  street.  Do  you  know 
what  you  owe  to  that  great  man?  You  owe 
your  country,  you  owe  your  name  as  Amer- 
ican citizens." 

"After  very  much  of  this,"  Hay  adds, 
"MacVeagh  made  a  most  touching  and 
beautiful  spurt  of  five  minutes,  and  Judge 
Stevenson  of  Pennsylvania  spoke  effectively 
and  acceptably  to  the  people.  We  sang 
John  Brown  and  went  home." 

The  events  of  the  evening,  suggests  Pro- 
fessor Thayer,  form  a  sort  of  Shakespear- 
ean interlude  of  low  comedy  coming  just 
before  the  stately,  dramatic  scene  of  con- 
secration. 

47 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

About  nine  o'clock  Lincoln  excused  him- 
self from  the  company  in  the  parlor  of  the 
Wills  home  and  went  to  his  room  on  the 
second  floor,  the  windows  of  which  looked 
out  upon  the  Public  Square  thronged  at  that 
time  with  a  somewhat  noisy  crowd. 

A  single  incident  of  the  evening  reveals 
the  unfailing  simplicity  of  Lincoln's  nature 
and  the  native  democracy  of  his  spirit  which 
was  to  have  on  the  following  day  immortal 
expression.  Mr.  H.  P.  Bigham,  now  a  resi- 
dent of  Altoona,  Pennsylvania,  lived  at  that 
time  in  the  country  five  miles  from  Gettys- 
burg. He  was  a  member  of  Company  B, 
Twenty-first  Pennsylvania  Volunteer  Cav- 
alry, which  had  been  recruited  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Gettysburg,  and  he  was  detailed 
to  stand  guard  at  the  door  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
room  in  the  Wills  home.  During  the  even- 
ing a  telegram  for  Mr.  Lincoln  was  re- 
ceived and  Mr.  Bigham  knocked  at  the 
President's  door  and  handed  it  to  him.  A 
few  minutes  later  the  door  opened  and  Mr. 
Lincoln  said  to  the  guard,  "That  telegram 
was  from  home;  my  little  boy  is  very  sick, 
but  is  better."  Rulers  of  nations  have  not 
48 


32 


•IS 


*a 


THE  NIGHT  AT  GETTYSBURG 

always  felt  it  necessary  to  impart  to  common 
soldiers  the  contents  of  their  private  mes- 
sages. 

Somewhere  between  nine  and  ten  o'clock 
Mr.  Lincoln  sent  his  colored  servant  down- 
stairs requesting  Mr.  Wills  to  come  to  his 
room.  When  Mr.  Wills  went  up,  the  Presi- 
dent said  that  he  had  just  seated  himself  to 
put  on  paper  some  remarks  for  to-morrow's 
exercises,  and  desired  to  know  just  what  was 
expected  of  him.  After  a  few  minutes'  talk, 
during  which  Mr.  Wills  fully  explained  the 
program  for  the  next  day  and  the  part  that 
the  President  was  expected  to  take  in  it,  he 
withdrew. 

About  eleven  o'clock  the  President  opened 
his  door  and  inquired  of  the  guard  where  Mr. 
Seward  was  staying.  Thereupon  Mr.  Wills 
was  again  summoned,  and  learning  that  his 
guest  desired  to  confer  for  a  few  minutes 
with  Mr.  Seward,  he  volunteered  to  bring 
the  Secretary  to  the  President's  room.  Mr. 
Lincoln  replied  that  if  Mr.  Seward  was  at 
the  house  adjoining,  he  would  go  to  him. 
Gathering  up  some  of  the  sheets  of  paper 
upon  which  he  had  been  writing,  accom- 

49 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

panied  by  Mr.  Wills  and  the  guard,  he  went 
to  Mr.  Harper's  home.  Mr.  Wills  returned 
and  the  guard  remained  at  the  Harper  door. 

While  Lincoln  was  conferring  with  Mr. 
Seward,  presumably  regarding  the  remarks 
he  was  to  make  at  the  exercises  of  the  follow- 
ing day,  a  glee  club  from  Baltimore  engaged 
to  take  part  in  the  dedicatory  program,  sere- 
naded the  President,  singing  several  of  the 
war  songs  popular  at  that  time.  This  sing- 
ing attracted  a  crowd,  and  when  Lincoln 
finally  appeared  at  the  door,  intending  to 
return  to  his  room,  he  found  the  sidewalk 
and  the  street  in  front  of  the  Harper  home 
crowded  with  people.  Lincoln  said  to  the 
guard,  "You  clear  a  way  and  I  will  hang 
onto  your  coat." 

The  President  again  entered  his  room  and 
no  further  incident  of  the  evening  called  him 
forth.  The  noise  and  the  music  of  the  street 
gradually  lessened,  but  owing  to  the  great 
crowd  present,  many  of  whom  were  unable 
to  obtain  lodgings,  this  country  village  did 
not  experience  that  night  its  wonted  quiet. 


50 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  DAY  OF  DEDICATION 

THE  early  dawn  of  the  nineteenth  was 
dark  with  threatening  storm.  A  little  later, 
however,  the  day  broke  clear  and  beautiful, 
and  there  was  in  the  air  that  exhilarating 
tang  so  delightfully  characteristic  of  late 
Pennsylvania  autumns.  The  crowds,  some 
of  whom  had  slept  on  improvised  beds  on 
floors  of  dwellings  and  of  public  buildings, 
and  some  had  not  slept  at  all,  were  early 
astir.  The  visitors  continued  to  arrive  and, 
to  quote  the  local  newspapers  of  contempo- 
rary date,  "The  streets  swarmed  with  people 
from  all  sections  of  the  Union.  The  throngs 
of  men  and  women,  the  large  turnout  of  the 
military  in  their  best  trim,  the  flags  floating 
in  the  breeze  at  innumerable  points,  all  con- 
tributed to  the  making  of  a  picture  of  rare 
and  exciting  interest." 

About  nine  o'clock  Mr.  Nicolay,  secretary 
to  the  President,  went  to  the  room  in  the 

51 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

Wills  home  occupied  by  Lincoln  and  found 
him  at  work  upon  the  address  which  he  was 
to  deliver.  He  continued  to  write,  so  far  as 
the  many  interruptions  gave  him  oppor- 
tunity, up  to  the  time  that  it  was  necessary 
for  him  to  take  his  place  in  the  procession. 
As  he  wrote,  bands  were  playing  in  the 
Public  Square  upon  which  the  windows  of 
his  room  opened,  and  bodies  of  soldiers  and 
civic  societies  were  marching  and  counter- 
marching to  their  allotted  places  in  the  line. 

At  ten  o'clock  Mr.  Lincoln,  dressed  in 
black,  wearing  a  tall  silk  hat  and  having 
white  gauntlets  upon  his  hands,  passed  out  of 
the  York  Street  door  of  the  Wills  home 
between  two  lines  of  soldiers,  and  mounted  a 
medium  sized  bay  horse  which,  according  to 
popular  tradition,  was  owned  by  Mr.  Adam 
Rebert,  a  citizen  of  Gettysburg.  The  crowds 
at  once  closed  in  about  him,  and  for  a  little 
while  he  was  compelled  to  hold  an  impromptu 
reception.  Mr.  Lamon,  marshal  of  the  day, 
soon  cleared  the  street  and  the  procession 
started  on  its  way  to  the  Cemetery. 

The  Rev.  W.  A.  Dickson,  now  a  resident 
of  Chambersburg,  Pennsylvania,  as  a  small 

52 


THE  DAY  OF  DEDICATION 

boy  accompanied  his  father  to  Gettysburg  to 
attend  the  exercises  of  the  dedication.  One 
of  the  incidents  of  that  eventful  day  stands 
out  fresh  in  his  memory.  As  the  Presidential 
party  in  the  procession  was  passing  through 
the  Public  Square  on  its  way  to  Baltimore 
Street,  a  man  standing  close  to  the  line  held 
high  in  his  arms  his  little  girl  dressed  in 
white.  Lincoln  reached  out  his  long  arms, 
lifted  the  child  to  a  place  on  the  horse  before 
him,  kissed  her,  then  handed  her  back  to  the 
happy  father. 

The  procession  was  made  up  of  several 
bands  of  music,  including  the  Marine  Band 
of  Washington,  the  Second  U.  S.  Artillery 
Band  of  Baltimore,  the  Birgfield  Band  of 
Philadelphia,  the  band  of  the  Fifth  New 
York  Heavy  Artillery,  several  military  or- 
ganizations, various  officers  of  the  army  and 
their  staffs.  Immediately  behind  the  Fifth 
New  York  Heavy  Artillery  came  President 
Lincoln  and  the  visiting  members  of  his  Cab- 
inet on  horseback,  escorted  by  Marshal 
Ward  B.  Lamon  with  his  aids  and  their 
staffs.  Following  these  were  the  cemetery 
commissioners  from  the  various  States,  also 

53 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

on  horseback ;  then  a  visiting  delegation  from 
Baltimore,  local  lodges,  the  faculty  and  stu- 
dents of  the  Gettysburg  College  and  Semi- 
nary, and  citizens. 

Mrs.  John  M.  Young,  now  of  Williams- 
port,  Pennsylvania,  granddaughter  of  the 
late  R.  G.  Harper,  of  Gettysburg,  at  whose 
home  Mr.  Seward  was  entertained  on  the 
occasion  of  his  visit  there,  says  that  after 
fifty  years  the  thing  that  stands  out  most 
vividly  in  her  memory  of  the  dedication  day 
is  the  picture  of  Lincoln  on  horseback  in  the 
procession,  towering  like  Saul  of  old,  from 
his  shoulders  up,  above  his  fellows.  A  sim- 
ilar sentiment  is  expressed  by  others  who, 
after  the  lapse  of  half  a  century,  attempt  to 
recall  incidents  and  impressions  of  that  dis- 
tant day. 

The  line  of  march  was  up  Baltimore 
Street,  along  which  three  months  before  the 
Union  Army  had  retreated  on  the  evening  of 
the  first  day's  fight,  leaving  the  street  strewn 
with  their  wounded  and  dead.  The  village 
of  Gettysburg  still  retains  visible  scars  of 
that  three  days'  struggle.  Solid  shot  are 
imbedded  in  brick  walls,  wooden  fences  are 
54. 


THE  DAY  OF  DEDICATION 

full  of  holes  made  by  rifle  bullets,  buildings 
bear  marks  of  the  fragments  of  shells,  and 
on  grass-covered  roadsides  and  fields  depres- 
sions reveal  where  rifle  pits  and  cannon 
lunettes  once  were.  The  only  parts  of  the 
battlefield  which  Lincoln  visited  when  at 
Gettysburg  were  those  he  passed  over  on  his 
way  from  the  Wills  home  to  the  Cemetery; 
but  the  wrecked  fences,  the  broken  trees,  the 
open  trenches  which  were  to  be  seen  on  every 
hand  must  have  brought  back  to  him  vividly 
the  red  strife  whose  frightful  sacrifices  were, 
day  by  day,  to  use  his  own  language,  "eating 
out  his  life." 

Mr.  Clark  E.  Carr  rode  just  behind  the 
Presidential  party  in  the  procession.  He 
states  that  as  they  moved  up  Baltimore 
Street  from  the  Public  Square,  Lincoln  sat 
erect,  handling  with  his  gauntleted  hands  the 
reins  of  his  horse  with  skill  and  grace,  and 
that  he  looked  the  part  of  the  Commander- 
in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy,  which  he 
was;  but  as  the  procession  moved  on,  his 
body  leaned  forward,  his  head  was  bowed,  his 
arms  hung  limp  and  lifeless.  To  his  friends 
of  early  years  he  appeared  as  in  the  old  days 

55 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

when,  as  a  lawyer,  he  rode  the  muddy  high- 
ways of  Illinois.  He  seemed  absorbed  in 
thought;  again  he  was  Atlas  bearing  upon 
his  bent  shoulders  the  burden  of  a  nation. 

The  cemetery  is  on  the  edge  of  the  village, 
about  three  fourths  of  a  mile  from  the  Public 
Square.  The  procession  reached  there  at  fif- 
teen minutes  after  eleven  o'clock.  Practi- 
cally on  the  spot  now  occupied  by  the  Na- 
tional Monument  a  small  platform  had  been 
erected,  raised  about  three  feet  from  the 
ground,  and  to  this  the  President  and  his 
party  were  ushered.  Lincoln  occupied  a 
high-backed  rocking  chair  placed  between 
the  seat  occupied  by  Secretary  Seward  and 
the  one  reserved  for  Mr.  Everett. 

Mr.  Everett  was  a  half  hour  late  in  arriv- 
ing. In  the  meantime  the  bands  played 
patriotic  selections  and  a  line  of  soldiers  was 
thrown  in  a  great  circle  about  the  crowd  con- 
gregated near  the  stand,  which  was  variously 
estimated  as  being  from  ten  to  fifteen  thou- 
sand in  number.  |  Beyond  the  line  of  soldiers 
a  vaster  throng  surged  and  jostled  in  an 
endeavor  to  get  a  view  of  the  platform  and 
its  occupants. 

56 


THE  DAY  OF  DEDICATION 

The  formal  program  was  opened  by  a 
dirge  rendered  by  Birgfield's  Band.  This 
was  followed  by  a  prayer  by  the  Rev. 
Thomas  H.  Stockton,  chaplain  of  the  United 
States  Senate.  The  effort  was  eloquent  and 
touching,  though  somewhat  lengthy,  and  it 
was  the  embodiment  rather  of  the  spirit  of 
patriotism  and  victory_than  of  the  spirit  of 
humility  and  devotion.  His  closing  words 
were:  "Bless  all  the  associations  of  this  day 
and  place  and  scene  forever.  As  the  trees 
are  not  dead  though  their  foliage  is  gone,  so 
our  heroes  are  not  dead  though  their  forms 
have  fallen.  In  their  proper  personality  they 
are  all  with  Thee ;  and  the  spirit  of  their  ex- 
ample is  here.  It  fills  the  air,  it  fills  our 
hearts,  and  as  long  as  time  shall  last  it  will 
hover  in  these  skies  and  rest  on  these  land- 
scapes, and  pilgrims  of  our  own  land,  and  of 
all  lands,  will  thrill  with  its  inspirations  and 
increase  and  confirm  their  devotion  to  liberty, 
religion,  and  God." 

The  local  Gettysburg  paper  in  its  issue 
following  the  dedication,  in  speaking  of  this 
part  of  the  program,  says :  "During  the  offer- 
ing of  this  most  eloquent  prayer  profound 

57 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

silence  prevailed  and  many  were  affected  to 
tears.  The  President  was  evidently  deeply 
moved  and  with  the  venerable  statesman  and 
patriot,  Hon.  Edward  Everett,  who  was  by 
his  side,  seemed  not  ashamed  to  let  their  sym- 
pathetic tears  be  seen." 

The  Marine  Band  then  rendered  a  selec- 
tion, after  which  letters  of  regret  were  read 
from  General  George  G.  Meade,  General 
Winfield  Scott,  and  others. 

It  was  noon  when  Mr.  Everett  arose  and 
spoke  the  opening  words  of  his  oration: 
"Standing  beneath  this  serene  sky,  overlook- 
ing these  broad  fields  now  reposing  from  the 
labors  of  the  waning  year,  the  mighty  Alle- 
ghanies  towering  before  us,  the  graves  of  our 
brethren  beneath  our  feet,  it  is  with  hesita- 
tion that  I  raise  my  poor  voice  to  break  the 
eloquent  silence  of  God  and  nature." 

His  oration,  which  was  prepared  with 
great  care,  was  modeled  along  classical  lines 
and  was  delivered  with  oratorical  grace  and 
effectiveness.  He  traced  at  some  length  the 
movements  of  the  two  great  armies  up  to  the 
time  that  they  met  in  the  bloody  conflict 
which  raged  amid  the  hills  and  across  the 

58 


THE  DAY  OF  DEDICATION 

quiet  countryside  now  stretching  before  his 
eyes  in  the  autumnal  haze.  For  three  days 
preceding  the  dedication,  Mr.  Everett  had 
been  a  guest  at  the  home  of  Mr.  Wills,  and 
had  made  himself  familiar  with  all  the  details 
of  the  field  and  with  all  the  military  move- 
ments of  the  first  three  days  of  July.  His 
oration  furnished  a  vivid  and  picturesque 
description  of  the  battle  as  it  developed  and 
as  it  ended.  The  latter  half  of  his  speech  was 
a  discussion  of  the  political  and  economic 
causes  that  had  led  up  to  the  war,  and  a  clear 
presentation  of  the  issue  for  which  the  Union 
armies  were  fighting. 

It  was  nearly  two  o'clock  when  Mr.  Ever- 
ett reached  the  closing  paragraph  of  his  ad- 
dress: "God  bless  the  Union;  it  is  dearer  to 
us  for  the  blood  of  the  brave  men  which  has 
been  shed  in  its  defense.  The  spots  on  which 
they  stood  and  fell;  these  pleasant  heights; 
the  fertile  plain  beneath  them;  the  thriving 
village  whose  streets  so  lately  rang  with  the 
strange  din  of  war;  the  fields  beyond  the 
ridge  where  the  noble  Reynolds  held  the  ad- 
vancing foe  at  bay,  and,  while  he  gave  up  his 
own  life  assured  by  his  forethought  and  self- 

59 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

sacrifice  the  triumph  of  the  two  succeeding 
days;  the  little  streams  which  wind  through 
the  hills,  on  whose  banks  in  after  time  the 
wondering  plowman  will  turn  up,  with  the 
rude  weapons  of  savage  warfare,  the  fearful 
missives  of  modern  artillery;  Seminary 
Ridge,  the  Peach  Orchard,  Cemetery,  Gulp 
and  Wolf  Hill,  Round  Top,  Little  Round 
Top — humble  names  henceforth  dear  and 
famous,  no  lapse  of  time,  no  distance  of 
space,  shall  cause  you  to  be  forgotten.  'The 
whole  earth,'  said  Pericles,  as  he  stood  over 
the  remains  of  his  fellow  citizens  who  had 
fallen  in  the  first  year  of  the  Peloponnesian 
War,  'the  whole  earth  is  the  sepulcher  of 
illustrious  men.'  All  time,  he  might  have 
added,  is  the  millennium  of  their  glory. 
Surely  I  will  not  do  injustice  to  the  other 
noble  achievements  of  the  war,  which  have 
reflected  such  honor  on  both  arms  of  the  serv- 
ice, and  have  entitled  the  armies  and  the  navy 
of  the  United  States,  their  officers  and  men, 
to  the  warmest  thanks  and  the  richest  re- 
wards which  a  grateful  people  can  pay.  But 
they,  I  am  sure,  will  join  us  in  saying,  as  we 
bid  farewell  to  the  dust  of  these  martyr- 
60 


THE  DAY  OF  DEDICATION 

heroes,  wheresoever  throughout  the  civilized 
world  the  accounts  of  this  great  warfare 
are  read,  and  down  to  the  latest  period  of 
recorded  time,  in  the  glorious  annals  of  our 
common  country  there  will  be  no  brighter 
page  than  that  which  relates  THE 
BATTLES  OF  GETTYSBURG." 

A  hymn  composed  for  the  occasion  by  Mr. 
B.  B.  French,  of  Washington,  was  then  sung 
by  the  Baltimore  Glee  Club : 
'Tis  holy  ground — 

This  spot  where  in  their  graves 

We  place  our  country's  braves, 

Who  fell  in  Freedom's  holy  cause, 

Fighting  for  liberties  and  laws; 
Let  tears  abound. 

Here  let  them  rest; 
And  summer's  heat  and  winter's  cold 
Shall  grow  and  freeze  above  this  mold, 
A  thousand  years  shall  pass  away, 
A  nation  still  shall  mourn  this  clay, 

Which  now  is  blest. 

Here,  where  they  fell, 
Oft  shall  the  widow's  tear  be  shed, 
Oft  shall  fond  parents  mourn  then*  dead; 
The  orphan  here  shall  kneel  and  weep, 
And  maidens,  where  their  lovers  sleep, 

Their  woes  shall  tell. 

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LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

Great  God  in  heaven! 
Shall  all  this  sacred  blood  be  shed? 
Shall  we  thus  mourn  our  glorious  dead? 
O !  shall  the  end  be  wrath  and  woe, 
The  knell  of  Freedom's  overthrow, 

A  country  riven? 

It  will  not  be! 

We  trust,  O  God,  thy  gracious  power 
To  aid  us  in  our  darkest  hour. 
This  be  our  prayer — "Father,  save 
A  people's  freedom  from  its  grave, 

All  praise  to  Thee." 

As  Lincoln  sat  upon  the  platform  the 
battlefield  spread  out  before  him  in  a  pan- 
orama, and  one  feels  safe  in  the  conclusion 
that  during  the  two  or  three  hours  that  he 
was  there  the  localities  which  had  figured 
conspicuously  in  the  conflict  were  either 
recognized  by  him  or  were  pointed  out  to 
him. 

The  ground  covered  by  the  platform 
where  he  sat  had  trembled  with  the  thunder 
of  cannon,  for  some  of  the  heaviest  of  the 
Federal  batteries  had  been  located  there ;  the 
sward  immediately  about  him  had  been  torn 
by  Confederate  shells  and  soaked  with 
heroes'  blood.  To  his  left,  close  at  hand,  was 

62 


Miss  AGNES  MAC-CREAKY  OF  GETTYSBURG 

At  whose  father's  home  the  glee  club  from  Baltimore  was  entertained  the 
night  preceding  the  dedication  of  the  National  Cemetery.  During  the  exer- 
cises on  the  following  day,  the  leader  of  the  glee  club  used  a  small  American 
flag  as  a  baton  as  he  directed  the  singing.  This  flag,  which  is  shown  in  the 
photograph,  was,  that  evening,  presented  by  the  leader  to  Miss  MacCreary, 
then  a  young  girl,  who  has  carefully  preserved  it  as  a  memento  of  that  his- 
toric event. 


THE  DAY  OF  DEDICATION 

East  Cemetery  Hill,  still  showing  marks  of 
the  hand-to-hand  struggle  that  had  taken 
place  there  on  the  night  of  July  second.  Be- 
yond, in  the  same  direction,  were  the  wooded 
inclines  that  sloped  up  into  Gulp's  Hill.  To 
his  right  was  Seminary  Ridge,  along  whose 
three-cornered  elevation  had  stretched  the 
battle  line  of  the  Confederates.  Lincoln's 
eye  must  have  followed  in  that  direction  the 
Emmittsburg  Road,  which  stretched  along 
the  valley  past  the  Peach  Orchard  and  on  to 
the  Ridge  beyond.  Far  to  the  south  were 
the  Round  Tops  and  the  wooded  depression 
where  were  the  Valley  of  Death,  and  Devil's 
Den,  and  the  Wheatfield — names  fresh  with 
interest  and  tragic  with  significance.  Only  a 
few  hundred  yards  in  front  was  the  broken 
stone  wall  at  the  Bloody  Angle,  where  the 
Union  defenders  had  piled  their  dead  in 
heaps  in  their  determination  that  Pickett's 
brigade  should  not  pass ;  stretching  away  be- 
yond the  Emmittsburg  Pike  toward  Spang- 
ler's  Woods  were  the  undulating  yellow 
fields  across  which  the  broken  brigades  of 
Virginians  had  retreated,  leaving  thousands 
of  their  gallant  dead  behind. 

63 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

The  scene  before  him  must  have  awakened 
deep  and  painful  emotions  in  his  sympathetic 
heart ;  it  must  too  have  started  in  his  brain  a 
train  of  far-reaching  thought. 

In  imagination  he  heard  again  the  belching 
cannon  filling  the  dreamy  autumn  air  with 
quaking  thunder,  and  saw  reenacted  in  those 
quiet  places  the  horrors  of  battle  where  thou- 
sands of  young  men  went  down  to  death. 
He  beheld  too,  far  beyond  the  blue  moun- 
tains that  skirt  the  horizon,  a  thousand  homes 
where  loved  ones  waited  through  long  days 
for  faces  and  forms  that  would  never  return, 
and  where  they  listened  through  long  nights 
for  footfalls  that  would  never  come. 

His  thought  too  traveled  far  both  in  time 
and  space,  as  does  now  the  significance  of  the 
words  which  he  was  soon  to  utter.  In  the 
background  of  his  thinking,  though  he  was 
perhaps  unconscious  of  it,  were  not  only  the 
Round  Tops,  and  the  Wheatfield,  and 
Devil's  Den,  but  Lexington,  and  Trenton, 
and  Yorktown,  and,  more  remotely,  Runny- 
mede,  and  Marston  Moor,  and  Bannock- 
burn,  and  all  the  fields  where  men  have  con- 
tended and  died  for  human  liberty  and  for 

64 


THE  DAY  OF  DEDICATION 

government  which  would  assure  to  all  the 
rights  and  opportunities  of  life. 

It  was  an  occasion  when  exultation  or  vin- 
dictiveness  might  quite  naturally  have  found 
place  in  wounded  hearts.  Such  sentiments 
did  find  a  place  in  some  parts  of  the  program 
and  also  in  the  applause  which  the  expression 
of  those  sentiments  evoked.  The  chaplain's 
prayer,  even,  was  not  wholly  free  from  the 
spirit  of  boasting  and  bitterness.  "Lincoln's 
heart,"  says  Emerson,  "was  as  large  as  the 
world,  but  in  it  there  was  no  room  for  the 
memory  of  a  wrong."  No  suggestion  of  re- 
joicing or  revenge  is  found  in  the  words 
which,  during  this  program,  he  was  in  his 
silent  thought  shaping  into  the  sentences  that 
he  was  to  utter.  As  a  mountain  towers  above 
all  the  eddying  clouds  and  the  wind-driven 
storms  of  the  valley  into  the  calm  and  sun- 
shine of  higher  levels,  his  thought  rose  above 
all  the  passing  passions  of  the  hour  and  dwelt 
on  great  and  abiding  truths  which  pertain 
to  human  life  and  progress. 

Professor  Calvin  Hamilton,  who  for  many 
years  was  connected  with  the  Gettysburg 
schools,  and  from  1891  up  to  the  time  of  his 

65 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

death  in  1914  was  superintendent  of  the  Na- 
tional Cemetery,  was  present  on  the  day  of 
dedication.  One  incident  of  that  historic  day 
at  Gettysburg  stood  out  clear  in  his  memory. 
Mr.  Hamilton  was  wounded  in  the  battle  on 
the  second  day  of  July,  and  on  the  nine- 
teenth of  November  his  arm  was  still  in  a 
sling.  When  Mr.  Everett  began  to  speak, 
Mr.  Hamilton  made  no  attempt  to  get  near 
the  speaker's  stand,  as  to  have  done  so  would 
have  been  to  risk  injuring  his  crippled  arm, 
so  crowded  was  the  space  about  the  stand. 
He  had  no  difficulty,  however,  in  gaining  a 
position  close  to  the  platform  just  before  Mr. 
Lincoln  arose  to  speak.  It  grew  warm  at 
midday,  the  people  had  been  standing  for 
hours,  and  the  crowd  thinned  out  somewhat 
during  the  time  that  Mr.  Everett  was  speak- 
ing. The  singing  of  the  Baltimore  Glee 
Club,  which  followed  the  oration,  caused  the 
crowd  to  move  back  again  toward  the  stand, 
resulting  temporarily  in  some  confusion. 

When  the  singing  of  the  Glee  Club  ended, 
the  President  arose  and  stepped  to  the  front 
of  the  platform.  It  was  a  stage  with  a  set- 
ting worthy  of  an  immortal  utterance.  Be- 

66 


THE  DAY  OF  DEDICATION 

hind  him  in  great  circles  billowed  the  graves 
of  a  thousand  heroes  who  had  fallen  amid  the 
crash  and  thunder  of  battle ;  in  front  of  him 
were  draped  flags,  and  bayonets  gleaming  in 
the  autumn  sunlight,  the  blue  uniforms  of 
seasoned  soldiers,  some  of  whom  had  empty 
sleeves  and  some  of  whom  leaned  heavily 
upon  crutches,  and  stretching  away  a  sea  of 
upturned  faces  tense  with  expectant  inter- 
est. For  a  moment  Lincoln,  towering  up  in 
his  unusual  height,  stood  silent,  his  hands 
clasped,  his  head  bowed.  Then  he  lifted  his 
face  to  the  vast  concourse  of  people,  and  in 
that  high-pitched  tenor  voice  so  familiar  to 
those  who  had  heard  him  speak  in  the  out-of- 
door  political  gatherings  in  Illinois,  a  voice 
that  carried  his  words  to  the  outer  edges  of 
the  great  crowd,  he  gave  his  now  immortal 
Address. 

The  crowd  became  quiet  when  Lincoln 
arose  to  speak,  but  his  address  was  so  short 
that  the  people  had  hardly  adjusted  them- 
selves to  listen  when  he  ceased.  As  he  took 
his  seat  there  was  silence  for  a  moment,  then 
some  scattered  applause. 

Greatness  in  a  speech,  like  greatness  in 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

men,  or  in  events,  is  usually  recognized  only 
wfien  seerTtnlrougE  thcfhaze  of  distance  which 
^the  passing  years  bring.  As  the  multitude 
that  day  saw  with  curious  but  sympathetic 
eye  this  sad-faced  man  awkwardly  sink  down 
in  his  chair,  how  little  they  realized  that  the 
sentences  which  they  had  been  privileged  to 
hear  would  take  their  place  among  the  great 
compositions  of  literature! 

Mr.  Carr,  of  Illinois,  who  was  upon  the 
platform  at  the  time  and  was  sitting  near  the 
President,  says  that  at  one  point  in  the  ad- 
dress Lincoln  was  deeply  moved.  As  he 
spoke  the  words:  "The  world  will  little  note 
nor  long  remember  what  we  say  here ;  but  it 
can  never  forget  what  they  did  here,"  his 
hand  swept  in  a  wide  circle  over  the  hundreds 
of  new-made  graves,  his  lips  quivered,  and 
for  a  moment,  his  voice  broke. 

Lincoln  while  speaking  held  the  manu- 
script of  his  address  in  his  hand ;  whether  he 
read  from  it  or  not  has  long  been  a  disputed 
question.  So  positive  and  so  contradictory 
are  the  statements  upon  this  point  made  in 
recent  years  by  some  of  those  who  were  then 
present  that  it  is  hardly  profitable  to  quote 
68 


THE  DAY  OF  DEDICATION 

them.  Memory  is  not  always  to  be  trusted 
as  it  attempts  to  deal  with  the  details  of 
events  removed  by  half  a  century;  what  has 
been  heard  or  read  at  a  much  later  date  may 
often  be  unconsciously  incorporated  as  an 
inseparable  part  of  what  one  may,  in  good 
faith,  believe  to  be  his  own  recollection  of  the 
original  event. 

Mr.  Nicolay,  the  President's  secretary, 
who  was  within  a  few  feet  of  Lincoln  on  the 
platform,  says  in  the  Century  Magazine,  of 
February,  1894,  that  Lincoln  did  not  read 
from  the  written  page,  though  that  impres- 
sion was  naturally  left  upon  many  of  his 
auditors.  The  fact  that  the  stenographic 
reports  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  words,  made  at  the 
time,  do  not  closely  agree  with  the  written 
manuscript  which  he  held  in  his  hand,  goes 
far  to  justify  Mr.  Nicolay's  assertion.  If 
Mr.  Lincoln  read  from  the  manuscript  at  all, 
he  certainly  did  not  read  closely. 

An  Associated  Press  reporter  took  down 
in  shorthand  the  words  of  Mr.  Lincoln  as  he 
spoke,  and  this  report  was  at  once  tele- 
graphed to  all  parts  of  the  country.  The 
versions  of  these  "dedicatory  remarks,"  as 

69 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

the  address  was  then  styled,  as  they  appeared 
in  the  dailies  of  the  large  cities  on  the  follow- 
ing morning,  while  agreeing  in  all  essentials, 
differed,  and  in  some  cases  differed  widely, 
in  the  use  of  words  and  in  details  of  phrasing. 
These  variations  were  doubtless  due  to  errors 
in  telegraphing  and  to  errors  made  in  the 
composition  rooms  of  the  newspapers. 

The  State  of  Massachusetts  was  repre- 
sented at  the  cemetery  dedication  by  a  spe- 
cial committee  appointed  by  the  governor. 
This  committee  in  its  official  report  includes 
the  speeches  in  full  of  both  Mr.  Everett  and 
Mr.  Lincoln.  Regarding  the  latter,  it  says : 
"Lincoln's  speech,  which  has  not  generally 
been  printed  rightly,  having  been  marred  by 
errors  in  telegraphing,  is  appended  in  cor- 
rect form,  as  the  words  actually  spoken  by 
the  President  with  great  deliberation  were 
taken  down  by  one  of  the  undersigned."  Mr. 
Charles  Hale,  a  newspaper  man  of  long  ex- 
perience, who  was  a  member  of  the  com- 
mittee, is  the  one  referred  to  as  having  steno- 
graphically  reported  the  address. 

The  version  of  the  address  given  by  this 
committee  is,  in  all  probability,  as  correct  a 
70 


THE  DAY  OF  DEDICATION 

report  of  the  actual  words  spoken  by  Lin- 
coln on  that  historic  occasion  as  the  world 
will  ever  have : 

Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers 
brought  forth  upon  this  continent  a  new  nation, 
conceived  in  liberty  and  dedicated  to  the  proposi- 
tion that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing 
whether  that  nation  or  any  nation,  so  conceived 
and  dedicated,  can  long  endure. 

We  are  met  on  a  great  battlefield  of  that  war. 
We  are  met  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  it  as  the  final 
resting  place  of  those  who  have  given  then*  lives 
that  that  nation  might  live. 

It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should 
do  this. 

But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  cannot  dedicate,  we 
cannot  consecrate,  we  cannot  hallow,  this  ground. 
The  brave  men,  living  and  dead,  who  struggled 
here  have  consecrated  it,  far  above  our  power  to 
add  or  to  detract. 

The  world  will  very  little  note  nor  long  remember 
what  we  say  here;  but  it  can  never  forget  what 
they  did  here. 

It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather,  to  be  dedicated, 
here,  to  the  unfinished  work  that  they  have  thus  far 
so  nobly  carried  on.  It  is,  rather,  for  us  to  be  here 
dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us; 
that  from  these  honored  dead  we  take  increased 
devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  here  gave  the 

71 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

last  full  measure  of  devotion;  that  we  here  highly 
resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain; 
that  the  nation  shall,  under  God,  have  a  new  birth 
of  freedom,  and  that  government  of  the  people,  by 
the  people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the 
earth. 

The  dedication  program  closed  with  a 
dirge,  "Oh!  It  is  Great  for  Our  Country  to 
Die,"  sung  by  a  large  chorus,  and  Dr. 
Baugher,  president  of  the  local  college,  pro- 
nounced the  benediction.  While  cannons 
were  roaring  a  salute  Lincoln  remounted  his 
horse  and  returned  to  the  Wills  home,  pass- 
ing, as  John  Hay  wrote  that  night  in  his 
diary,  "through  crowded  and  cheering 
streets." 


W  u 

O  1 

*•  & 

g  I 

J« 

«  I 

§  " 

a  « 


a  .a 

§:= 

a  o 


CHAPTER  VI 

A  RECEPTION  AND  A  VILLAGE  HERO 

ON  their  return  to  the  village  President 
Lincoln,  Governor  Curtin,  the  Hon.  Ed- 
ward Everett,  and  others  partook  of  a  be- 
lated luncheon  at  the  home  of  Mr.  Wills.  A 
little  later,  in  order  that  the  thousands  of  vis- 
itors at  Gettysburg  might  have  an  oppor- 
tunity to  grasp  the  hand  of  the  President,  a 
public  reception  was  held  at  the  Wills  home. 
Lincoln  stood  in  the  wide  hall  which  opens 
upon  York  Street  and  greeted  the  people  as 
they  entered.  They  then  passed  down  the 
hall  to  the  private  office  of  Judge  Wills, 
which  was  at  the  right,  where  Mr.  Curtin,  the 
popular  governor  of  Pennsylvania,  greeted 
them  as  they  passed  out  into  the  Public 
Square. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  spent  his  early  life  in 
communities  where  physical  prowess  was  the 
mark  of  a  man's  worth,  and  in  his  estimation 
of  men,  he  seems  never  to  have  been  able  to 
wholly  disregard  that  standard  of  measure- 
ment. At  a  time  when  all  his  battles  were 

73 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

intellectual  battles  and  all  his  victories  were 
victories  of  the  mind,  he  still  took  great  pride 
in  his  physical  strength,  and  especially  in  his 
unusual  height.  Tall  men  whom  he  met  were 
always  of  great  interest  to  him  and  he  rarely 
let  pass  an  opportunity  to  learn  just  how  tall 
they  were.  There  is  evidence  that,  at  times, 
he  felt  something  akin  to  disappointment, 
or  inferiority,  when  he  met  a  man  who  proved 
to  be  taller  than  himself.  This  phase  of  Lin- 
coln's character  furnished  one  of  the  few  re- 
membered incidents  of  this  afternoon  recep- 
tion. 

Professor  Calvin  Hamilton,  to  whom 
reference  has  been  made,  during  the  recep- 
tion sat  on  the  open  stairway  that  ascends 
from  the  hall  in  the  Wills  house  and  watched 
the  people  as  they  greeted  the  President. 
Not  long  before  his  death  Professor  Hamil- 
ton said  he  distinctly  remembered  how  he 
was  impressed  on  that  occasion  by  the  expres- 
sion of  sadness  upon  Mr.  Lincoln's  face.  He 
appeared  listless,  and  his  thoughts  seemed  to 
be  far  away  as  he  shook  the  hands  of  the  hun- 
dreds that  passed.  At  length  a  man  of  un- 
usual height  entered  and  Mr.  Lincoln's  eye 
74 


A  RECEPTION 

immediately  marked  him.  As  the  stranger 
approached,  the  President,  with  a  new  inter- 
est animating  his  face,  grasped  both  his 
hands  and  held  him  while  they  talked  for  a 
moment.  Professor  Hamilton  was  not  near 
enough  to  hear  what  was  said,  but  we  may 
safely  assume  that  Lincoln  had  inquired  how 
tall  he  was.  The  man  passed  on  and  the  old 
sadness  crept  back  into  the  President's  face 
as  he  mechanically  grasped  the  outstretched 
hands  until  the  hour  for  closing  the  reception 
came. 

Some  light  as  to  the  real  spirit  of  democ- 
racy which  prompted  the  great  utterance  at 
the  cemetery  dedication  is  found  in  an  inci- 
dent that  took  place  on  the  evening  of  that 
day. 

John  Burns,  once  the  village  cobbler,  later 
the  village  constable,  was  at  the  time  of  the 
battle  past  seventy  years  of  age.  When,  on 
the  morning  of  July  first,  he  learned  that  the 
Confederates  were  approaching  the  town 
along  the  Chambersburg  Pike  from  the 
north,  he  slung  over  his  shoulder  his  old- 
fashioned  powder  horn,  filled  the  pockets  of 
his  linen  duster  with  home-molded  bullets, 
1  75 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

took  down  his  flint-lock  squirrel  rifle  which 
may  now  be  seen  in  the  museum  at  Harris- 
burg,  and  started  out  toward  Seminary 
Ridge  to  meet  the  foe. 

He  first  joined  himself  to  the  One  Hun- 
dred and  Fiftieth  Pennsylvania  Volunteers 
who  were  holding  the  hill  between  McPher- 
son's  barn  and  the  woods,  and  he  fought  with 
them  in  the  open  until  they  retreated  to  the 
ridge  in  the  rear.  He  then  moved  over  to  the 
left  where  the  Iron  Brigade  was  vainly  at- 
tempting to  hold  the  woods  against  the  on- 
coming of  superior  numbers.  Here,  beside  a 
tree  which  is  still  pointed  out,  he  fought  un- 
til wounded  three  times.  When  the  Iron 
Brigade  was  compelled  to  retreat,  Burns  was 
left  behind  and  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
Confederates. 

The  old  hero,  in  his  coat  of  peculiar  fashion 
and  his  rifle  of  ancient  make,  furnished  con- 
siderable amusement  for  the  soldiers,  until, 
as  Bret  Harte  puts  it, 

As  they  gazed  there  crept  an  awe 
Through  the  rank  in  whispers  and  some  men  saw 
In  antique  vestments  and  long  white  hair, 
The  past  of  the  nation  in  battle  there. 

76 


THE  STATVE  OF  JOHN  BURNS 


A  RECEPTION 

A  fine  statue  of  Burns  now  stands  on  the 
battlefield  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  place 
where  he  fought. 

Mr.  Lincoln  while  at  Gettysburg  heard 
the  story  of  this  hero,  and  at  his  request,  ac- 
cording to  an  item  in  the  local  paper  of  that 
date,  Mr.  Burns  was  escorted  to  the  Wills 
home,  where,  late  in  the  afternoon  at  the 
close  of  the  reception,  he  was  most  cordially 
greeted  by  the  President. 

Arrangements  had  been  made  for  a  patri- 
otic meeting  to  be  held  at  five  o'clock  in  the 
Presbyterian  church,  at  which  Colonel  An- 
derson, lieutenant  governor-elect  of  Ohio, 
was  to  make  the  address.  Mr.  Wills,  who 
was  an  elder  in  this  church,  planned  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  should  attend  the  service.  No 
mental  picture  of  that  historic  day  stands  out 
more  distinctly  in  the  memory  of  the  older 
inhabitants  of  the  village  than  that  of  Lin- 
coln and  John  Burns  walking  up  the  middle 
of  Baltimore  Street,  arm  in  arm,  on  their 
way  from  the  Wills  home  to  the  church.  The 
President,  tall  and  erect,  was  taking  as  he 
usually  did  long  strides,  and  the  diminutive 
village  constable  beside  him  was  able  only  by 

77 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

great,  and  not  altogether  graceful,  effort  to 
keep  abreast.  They  entered  the  church  to- 
gether and  occupied  a  pew  well  to  the  front 
which  had  been  reserved  for  the  President 
and  his  party. 

In  order  to  take  his  train,  Lincoln  was 
obliged  to  leave  before  the  exercises  were 
completed.  As  he  passed  down  the  aisle  of 
the  crowded  church  the  people  arose  and 
many  hands  were  stretched  out  for  a  fare- 
well grasp. 

The  exercises  of  the  day  over,  thousands 
thronged  the  station  and  the  streets  that  led 
to  it  seeking  trains  to  take  them  to  their 
homes.  Through  this  crowd  a  way  was  made 
for  the  President,  who  was  loudly  cheered  as 
he  passed.  His  train  departed  for  Washing- 
ton about  six  o'clock  and,  standing  on  the 
rear  platform,  he  waved  farewell  until  lost  to 
sight  in  the  fast  coming  darkness.  Thus  came 
to  a  close  the  first  and  only  visit  of  Lincoln 
to  this  village  whose  name  will  be  forever  in- 
separably linked  with  his  own. 


78 


INTERIOR  OK  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH,  GETTYSBURG 

Showing  the  pew  occupied  by  President  Lincoln  and  John  Burns  on  the 
evening  of  the  day  the  Cemetery  was  dedicated. 

Two  tablets  mark  the  pew.  One  reads:  "Abraham  Lincoln  sat  in  this 
pew  at  a  patriotic  service  held  on  the  evening  he  dedicated  the  National 
Cemetery."  The  other  reads:  "John  Burns,  Scottish-American  patriot.  A 
hero  of  the  Battle  of  Gettysburg  was  here  signally  honored  by  the  great 
President.  Abraham  Lincoln  and  John  Burns  walked  arm  in  arm  to  pa- 
triotic services  in  this  edifice  on  the  evening  of  November  19,  1863.  They 
sat  together  in  this  pew." 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  SPELL  UPON,  THE  MULTITUDE 

THERE  is  a  widespread  impression  that 
Mr.  Lincoln's  speech  was,  at  the  time  of  its 
delivery,  looked  upon  as  a  failure,  and  that 
its  real  merit  was  first  recognized  by  literary 
critics  beyond  the  sea.  The  facts  of  the  case 
hardly  justify  such  a  conclusion. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  Lincoln  did 
jiot  then  hold  the  place  of  affection,  not  to 
say  reverence,  in  the  hearts  of  the  people 
which  now  he  holds ;  nor  were  his  words  given 
then  the  presumptive  favor  and  significance 
which  now  we  are  prone  to  attach  to  what- 
ever he  may  have  said.  The  difference  of 
mental  attitude  between  that  day  and  this  is 
clearly  and  painfully  revealed  in  this  com- 
ment on  the  Gettysburg  exercises  taken  from 
the  issue  of  November  24,  1863,  of  the  Pa- 
triot and  Union,  an  influential  paper  pub- 
lished at  Harrisburg,  Pennsylvania:  "The 
President  succeeded  on  this  occasion  because 

79 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

he  acted  without  sense  and  without  con- 
straint in  a  panorama  that  was  gotten  up 
more  for  the  benefit  of  his  party  than  for  the 
glory  of  the  nation  and  the  honor  of  the  dead. 
.  .  .  We  pass  over  the  silly  remarks  of  the 
President ;  for  the  credit  of  the  nation  we  are 
willing  that  the  veil  of  oblivion  shall  be 
dropped  over  them  and  that  they  shall  no 
more  be  repeated  or  thought  of." 

It  must  also  be  remembered  that  the  na- 
tional fame  of  Mr.  Everett  as  an  orator,  and 
his  address  of  masterly  and  massive  perfec- 
tion dwarfed  in  the  popular  estimation  every 
other  part  of  the  program. 

But,  notwithstanding  this,  there  is  satis- 
factory evidence  that  Lincoln's  address,  al- 
though perhaps  a  little  disappointing  to  the 
crowd  on  account  of  its  brevity,  made  a  most 
favorable  impression. 

That  night  John  Hay  wrote  in  his  diary: 
"Everett  spoke  as  he  always  does,  perfectly ; 
and  the  President,  in  firm,  free  way,  with 
more  grace  than  is  his  wont,  said  his  half- 
dozen  lines  of  consecration."  In  Mr.  Hay's 
thought,  as  in  the  thought  of  all  present,  Mr. 
Everett's  address  overshadowed  all  else  on 
80 


THE  SPELL  UPON  THE  MULTITUDE 

the  program,  yet  he  was  impelled  to  say  that 
Lincoln  spoke  with  unusual  grace  and  effec- 
tiveness. 

The  committee  which  was  sent  by  Massa- 
chusetts to  represent  that  State  at  the  dedica- 
tion, in  their  report  to  the  governor  said  that 
Lincoln's  address  "made  a  profound  impres- 
sion." Another  committee  from  the  same 
State  having  in  charge  the  burial  of  Massa- 
chusetts soldiers  in  the  cemetery,  in  their 
final  report  made  a  few  days  after  the  dedica- 
tion said  that  "perhaps  nothing  in  the  whole 
proceedings  made  so  deep  an  impression  on 
the  vast  assemblage,  or  has  conveyed  to  the 
country  in  so  concise  a  form  the  lesson  of  the 
hour  as  the  remarks  of  the  President.  Their 
simplicity  and  force  make  them  worthy  of  a 
prominence  among  the  utterances  from  high 
places." 

George  William  Curtis,  in  the  issue  of 
Harper's  Weekly  following  the  dedication, 
in  speaking  of  some  parts  of  the  address,  said 
that  "it  was  as  simple  and  felicitous  and  earn- 
est a  word  as  was  ever  spoken." 

On  November  30,  1863,  there  was  pub- 
lished in  the  Eaton,  Ohio,  Register  this 

81 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

communication  from  one  who  attended  the 
exercises:  "The  tall  form  of  the  President 
appeared  on  the  stand,  and  never  before  have 
I  seen  a  crowd  so  vast  and  restless,  after 
standing  so  long,  so  soon  stilled  and  quieted. 
Hats  were  removed  and  all  stood  motionless 
to  catch  the  first  words  he  should  utter,  and 
as  he  slowly,  clearly,  and  without  the  least 
sign  of  embarrassment  read  and  spoke,  one 
could  not  mistake  the  feeling  and  sentiment 
of  the  vast  multitude  before  him." 

The  Hon.  Edward  Everett,  after  the  exer- 
cises, went  to  Washington,  and  on  November 
20,  the  day  following  the  dedication,  wrote  a 
note  to  Mr.  Lincoln  thanking  him  for  the 
kindness  shown  himself  and  also  for  favors 
extended  to  his  daughter  while  at  Gettys- 
burg. He  further  wrote:  "Permit  me  to  ex- 
press my  great  admiration  for  the  thoughts 
expressed  by  you  with  such  eloquent  sim- 
plicity and  appropriateness  at  the  consecra- 
tion of  the  Cemetery.  My  son,  who  parted 
from  me  at  Baltimore,  and  my  daughter  con- 
cur in  this  sentiment." 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Remensnyder,  of  New 
York,  was  a  student  at  Gettysburg  when  the 

82 


THE  SPELL  UPON  THE  MULTITUDE 

Cemetery  was  dedicated  and  heard  Lincoln 
give  his  address.  He,  together  with  many  of 
the  other  students  of  the  college,  had  formed 
an  unfavorable  opinion  of  the  President  be- 
cause of  his  refusal  to  speak  to  them  when 
they  had  serenaded  him  at  the  Wills  home  on 
the  evening  of  the  eighteenth ;  this  impression 
was  deepened  the  next  day  by  what  appeared 
to  them  to  be  his  ungainly  appearance  as 
he  sat  in  the  large  rocking  chair  upon  the 
platform  while  Mr.  Everett  was  speaking. 
Yet  that  night  young  Remensnyder  wrote  in 
the  diary,  which  he  still  possesses,  "It  was  as 
fine  a  speech  as  I  have  ever  heard." 

Statements  of  similar  import  made  at  the 
time  by  equally  unprejudiced  and  unsym- 
pathetic listeners  might  be  quoted.  JThere 
can  be  little  doubt  tfrat  the  address  was  recog- 
nized from  the  first  as  an  unusual  utterance, 
even  though  time,  alone,  with  the  perspective 
which  it  brings,  could  give  jt_that  unique 
place  of  honor  in  the  world's  esteemjwhich 
now  it  holds. 


83 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  ADDRESS 

MANY  and  widely  varying  accounts  have 
been  given  as  to  the  time  and  place  of  the 
composition  of  the  Gettysburg  Address. 
From  presumably  authoritative  sources 
statements  have  come  that  it  was  written  on 
a  scrap  of  paper  picked  up  from  the  floor  of 
the  car  as  Lincoln  was  journeying  from 
Washington  to  Gettysburg;  that  it  was 
written  on  the  evening  of  the  eighteenth  at 
the  Wills  home  where  the  President  was  be- 
ing entertained;  and  even  that  he  composed 
it  on  the  platform  on  the  day  of  the  dedica- 
tion while  Mr.  Everett  was  speaking,  holding 
on  his  knee  the  paper  upon  which  he  wrote. 

A  great  utterance,  such  as  is  the  Gettys- 
burg Address,  is  not  the  result  of  an  acci- 
dent; it  is  the  outcome  of  an  adequate 
preparation.  About  two  weeks  intervened 
between  the  time  that  Lincoln  received  the 
invitation  to  make  "a  few  appropriate  re- 
84 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  ADDRESS 

marks,"  and  the  day  set  for  the  dedication, 
and  this  brief  period  was  crowded  with  tasks, 
especially  as  he  was  preparing  his  message  to 
Congress  which  convened  in  December;  yet 
the  evidence  is  clear  that  in  this  instance,  as 
was  his  custom  in  similar  situations,  he 
brooded  long  over  the  line  of  thought  that  he 
was  to  follow,  and  chose  with  painstaking 
care  the  words  by  which  his  thoughts  were  to  j 
be  conveyed. 

Mr.  Noah  Brooks,  the  well-known  jour- 
nalist, was  as  a  boy  in  Dixon,  Illinois,  some- 
what acquainted  with  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  dur- 
ing the  war,  while  serving  as  a  newspaper 
correspondent  at  Washington,  he  came  to  be 
on  intimate  terms  with  him.  Speaking  of 
the  Saturday  night  immediately  preceding 
the  week  when  the  Cemetery  at  Gettysburg 
was  to  be  dedicated,  Mr.  Brooks  says  that  the 
President  asked  him  to  accompany  him  on 
the  following  day  to  a  photographer's,  where 
he  was  to  have  his  picture  taken.  The  next 
morning,  as  they  were  leaving  the  house, 
Lincoln  suddenly  turned  back,  saying:  "I 
have  forgotten  Everett."  When  he  returned 
he  had  a  copy  of  the  Boston  Journal,  two 

85 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

whole  pages  of  which  were  taken  up  with  the 
speech  that  Mr.  Everett  was  to  deliver  on  the 
following  Thursday  at  Gettysburg.  As  they 
walked  on  Lincoln  said :  "It  was  very  kind  in 
Mr.  Everett  to  send  me  this.  I  suppose  he 
was  afraid  I  should  say  something  that  he 
wanted  to  say.  He  needn't  have  been 
alarmed.  My  speech  isn't  long." 

"It  is  written  then?"  said  Mr.  Brooks. 

"Well,  no,"  said  Lincoln  in  reply,  "it  is  not 
exactly  written.  It  is  not  finished,  anyway. 
But  it  is  short,  short,  short." 

Statements  of  similar  import  were  made 
by  Colonel  Ward  H.  Lamon,  who  was  on 
confidential  terms  with  the  President;  by 
John  F.  Defres,  who  was  a  Public  Printer 
during  Lincoln's  administration;  by  James 
'Speed,  a  member  of  Lincoln's  Cabinet  and  a 
man  of  judicious  and  honest  mind,  and  by 
Senator  Cameron,  of  Pennsylvania.  The 
evidence  is  conclusive  that  Lincoln,  before 
leaving  Washington  for  Gettysburg,  had 
written  the  first  draft  of  a  part,  and  probably 
of  the  whole,  of  his  address. 
l"  Many  statements  have  been  made  that 
Lincoln  spent  a  part  of  his  time,  as  he  jour- 

86 


was  to  take  in  thats.  ai 


•iii  His 


FACSIMILE  OF  A  LETTER  OF  DAVID  WILLS 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  ADDRESS 

neyed  to  Gettysburg,  in  writing  upon  the 
speech  he  was  to  make.  The  evidence,  how- 
ever, clearly  indicates  that  the  President's 
time  during  the  trip  was  almost  wholly  occu- 
pied in  conversation  with  members  of  the 
party,  and  that  he  neither  wrote  nor  made 
mention  of  his  speech  while  on  the  train. 

That  evening,  in  his  room  in  the  Wills 
home,  where  he  was  a  guest,  he  evidently  did 
work  upon  his  speech,  and  late  in  the  evening 
sought  an  interview  from  Mr.  Seward,  pre- 
sumably for  the  purpose  of  discussing  some 
phase  of  it  with  him. 

Mr.  J.  A.  Rebert,  of  Gettysburg,  was  a 
member  of  Company  B,  Twenty-first  Penn- 
sylvania Volunteer  Cavalry,  which  had  been 
recruited  from  Gettysburg  and  vicinity,  and 
at  the  time  of  the  dedication  was  stationed  at 
that  place.  In  1891  Mr.  Rebert,  then  living 
in  Philadelphia,  made  the  following  state- 
ment: 

"On  the  morning  of  the  19th  I  was  detailed 
as  orderly  to  President  Lincoln,  who  was  a 
guest  of  Judge  Wills.  About  9  A.  M.,  I  was 
sent  to  the  room  directly  above  Judge  Wills's 
office,  occupied  by  the  President  at  the  time. 

87 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

He  requested  me  to  wait  a  few  minutes  until 
he  finished  his  writing,  which  I  found  him 
engaged  in  on  entering  the  room.  He  had 
several  sheets  of  note  paper  in  front  of  him 
written  in  pencil,  and  several  that  he  was  just 
finishing.  Both  looked  more  like  notes  for 
reference  than  articles  for  publication. 
After  finishing  them  he  folded  them  all  to- 
gether and  placed  them  in  his  pocket.  He 
then  wrote  an  order  for  me  to  deliver  to 
Marshal  Lamon,  of  Washington,  D.  C., 
whose  headquarters  were  at  the  Eagle 
Hotel." 

Mr.  Nicolay,  the  President's  secretary,  in 
•  an  article  published  in  the  Century  Maga- 
zine, in  February,  1894,  gives  invaluable  in- 
formation upon  this  whole  subject,  and  sup- 
plements, as  well  as  corroborates,  the  state- 
ments already  given.  He  says  that  on  the 
morning  of  the  nineteenth,  after  breakfast, 
he  went  to  Mr,  Lincoln's  room,  and  the 
President  was  at  that  time  writing  upon  his 
address  and  he  continued  to  do  so  up  to  the 
time  that  he  prepared  to  take  his  place  in  the 
procession.  He  placed  the  pages  upon  which 
he  was  writing  in  his  pocket,  and  it  was  these 

88 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  ADDRESS 

papers  that  he  held  in  his  hand  while  deliver- 
ing his  address.  / 

This  original  draft  of  the  address  is  made 
up  of  two  sheets;  the  first  is  written  in  ink, 
the  second  in  lead  pencil.  Photographic 
facsimiles  of  both  are  here  given. 

Mr.  Nicolay,  in  the  Century  Magazine 
article  above  mentioned,  discusses  some  in- 
teresting phases  of  this  manuscript. 

"The  first  page,"  to  quote  Mr.  Nicolay,  "is 
on  a  sheet  of  the  letter  paper  at  that  time 
habitually  used  in  the  Executive  Mansion, 
containing  the  plainly  printed  blank  head- 
ing. The  whole  of  this  first  page  is  written 
in  ink,  in  the  President's  strong,  clear  hand 
without  blot  or  erasure." 

The  fact  that  the  last  sentence  on  this  page 
is  incomplete  naturally  leads  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  when  Lincoln  left  Washington 
there  was  a  second  page  of  the  same  station- 
ery upon  which,  in  ink,  this  unfinished  sen- 
tence was  completed ;  a  sheet  which  may  have 
contained  too  the  remaining  portion  of  the 
address. 

When  at  Gettysburg  Lincoln  proceeded 
to  complete,  or  to  revise  his  address.  Per- 

89 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

haps  he  did  both.  Taking  a  lead  pencil,  he 
crossed  out  the  last  three  words  of  the  first 
page  and  wrote  above  them  in  pencil,  "We 
here  be  dedica — ,"  at  which  point  he  took  up 
a  new  sheet  of  paper — "not  white  letter- 
paper,  as  before,  but  bluish-gray  foolscap  of 
large  size  with  wide  lines,  habitually  used  by 
him  for  long  or  formal  documents,  and  on 
this  he  wrote  out  in  pencil  the  remaining  nine 
lines  of  his  speech." 

P*  When  Mr.  Lincoln  gave  his  address,  while 
his  thought  as  written  and  as  spoken  is  iden- 
tical, he  did  not  give  it  in  the  same  form  as  it 
stood  in  the  manuscript  which  he  held  in  his 
hand.  In  the  three  or  four  hours  that  inter- 
vened between  his  leaving  the  Wills  home 
and  his  speaking  in  the  Cemetery,  he  had  evi- 
dently recast  the  forms  of  some  of  his  sen- 
tences. Some  of  his  ideas  were  enlarged 
upon  and  others  were  given  a  fuller  and  more 
rhetorical  expression.  When  he  returned  to 
Washington,  not  unconscious  of  the  merit  of 
his  remarks,  and  realizing  the  difference  that 
existed  between  the  address  as  it  was  written 
in  the  manuscript  and  as  it  was  actually 
(given,  he  made  a  new  copy  of  the  speech  in 
^  90 


*7  f*~*  i" 


/\^riX&*/  isf  *-*-*     &  i .  f\,-  jpL^ 


FACSIMILE  OF  THE  ORIGINAL  DRAFT  OF  THE  ADDRESS  WHICH 
LINCOLN  HELD  IN  His  HAND  WHILE  SPEAKING 

The  first  page  is  written  in  ink,  on  White  House  stationery  commonly 
used  at  that  time;  the  second  page  is  in  lead  pencil,  and  is  on  a  ruled  piece 
of  paper,  larger  in  size. 

The  original  sheets  are  in  the  Congressional  Library  at  Washington. 


-->-.  >*<••,. <n$- . 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  ADDRESS 

which  he  recorded,  as  nearly  as  his  memory 
enabled  him  to  recall  them,  the  exact  words 
that  he  had  used  at  Gettysburg.  This  he  did 
doubtless  before  he  had  carefully  studied  the 
Associated  Press  report  of  his  address  as  it 
was  given  in  the  city  dailies. 

This  version  of  his  address,  known  as  the 
"Hay  Manuscript,"  differs  but  slightly  from 
the  shorthand  reports  taken  down  as  he 
spoke,  save  that  the  words,  "under  God,"  are 
omitted  in  his  copy.  This  omission  is  evi- 
dently due  to  a  slip  of  memory  on  the  Presi- 
dent's part,  for  there  is  ample  evidence  that 
he  used  these  words  when  he  spoke  at  Gettys- 
burg. 

This  manuscript  copy  of  his  address,  to- 
gether with  the  two-sheet  original  draft  of 
the  speech  which  he  held  in  his  hand  while  he 
spoke,  were  given  by  Lincoln  to  Mr.  John 
Hay,  who  had  them  carefully  bound  in  a 
book.  For  half  a  century  they  remained  in 
the  keeping  of  the  Hay  family,  and  on  April 
11,  1916,  were  presented  by  them  to  the  na- 
tion and  are  now  in  the  Library  of  Congress 
at  Washington. 

A  few  days  after  the  dedication,  Mr. 
91 


Wills,  of  Gettysburg,  wrote  the  President 
asking  for  the  original  manuscript  of  his  ad- 
dress, that  it  might  be  placed  with  other 
papers  connected  with  the  Cemetery  affairs. 

"To  comply  with  this  request,"  says  Mr. 
Nicolay,  "the  President  reexamined  his  orig- 
inal draft,  and  the  version  which  had  ap- 
peared in  the  newspapers,  and  saw  that,  be- 
cause of  the  variations  between  them,  the 
first  seemed  incomplete,  and  the  others  im- 
perfect. By  his  direction,  therefore,  his 
secretaries  made  copies  of  the  Associated 
Press  report  as  it  was  printed  in  several 
prominent  papers.  Comparing  these  with 
his  original  draft,  and  with  his  own  fresh 
recollection  of  the  form  in  which  he  delivered 
it,  he  made  a  new  autograph  copy — a  careful 
and  deliberate  revision." 

Lincoln  made  at  least  four  of  these  auto- 
graph copies  of  his  address  in  this  revised 
form,  copying  each  with  great  care,  that  they 
might  conform  in  every  detail. 

One  was  made  for  Mr.  Wills,  of  Gettys- 
burg, which  was  lost. 

One  was  made  in  February,  1864,  for  Ed- 
ward Everett,  who  had  requested  a  copy, 

92 


2346  Haas.  ATS,  Washington,  D.C. 

Bev.  O.H.Carmichael  April  11,  1916 

Dear  Sir:  There  has  been  In  the  possession  of  my  two  sisters 
and  myself  two  copies  of  the  Gettysburg  Address,  both  of  which  are  dd- 
acrlbed  by  Major  Lambert  in  the  article  you  mention.  One  of  them  he  calls 
the  "Hay  ms".,  and  the  other  the  "Nlcolay  ma". 

In  the  Century  Magazine  in  the  volume  :iov.  1893 — April  1694,  page 
596,  Mr.  Nlcblay  describes  one  of  these  mas.  in  full,  and  w»  may  rely  on 
the  correctness  of  his  information.  This  is  the  one  that  has  one  page  in 
pencil  and  is  the  manuscript  that  Lincoln  held  in  his  hand  when  he  dellrr- 
ered  the  address. 

A*  to  the  other  manuscript  I  am  not  sure  when  the  President  made  it. 
We  have  no  record,  and  I  cannot  get  positive  information  on  this  point. 
I  have  spoken  with  Hiss  Helen  Nlcolay  and  with  Mr.  Robert  Lincoln,  and 
it  is  fairly  certain  that  the  copy  was  made  after  Mr.  Lincoln's  return 
from  Gettysburg.  It  was  probably  composed  by  the  President  when  he  was 
trying  to  record  the  address  as  he  had  delivered  It,  and  before  he  had 
carefully  studied  the  Press  accounts. 

In  this  connection  it  oust  be  noted  that  the  important  words'under 
God*  were  Included  in  the  version  as  taken  down  in  shorthand  by  the  re- 
porter for  the  Associated  Press. 

This  conclusion  is  given  an  added  value  by  the  fact  that  the  Hay 
ms"  differs  less  from  the  final  and  standard  nre »  than  the  "Hlcolay  me", 
which  could  hardly,  have  been  the  case  if  it  had  been  composed  prior  to 
POT.  19,1863,  and  left  at  the  White  House 

It  nay  Interest  you  to  know  that  we  are  giving  both  the  Gettysburg 
fflss.,  and  also  the  2nd  Inaugural  Address  to  the  Library  of  Congress 

to-day.  Sincerely  yours 

Clarence  L.  Hay 

LETTER  OF  MB.  CLARENCE  L.  HAT 


FROM  A  PHOTOGRAPH  OF  THE  MANUSCRIPT  IN  PRESIDENT 
LINCOLN'S  AUTOGRAPH  FORMERLY  OWNED  BY  THE 
LATE  JOHN  HAY 

Four  score  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought 
forth,  upon  this  continent,  a  new  nation,  conceived  in 
Liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men 
are  created  equal. 

Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether 
that  nation,  or  any  nation,  so  conceived,  and  so  dedicated, 
can  long  endure.  We  are  met  here  on  a  great  battle-field 
of  that  war.  We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  it  as 
a  final  resting  place  for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives 
that  that  nation  might  live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and 
proper  that  we  should  do  this. 

But  in  a  larger  sense  we  cannot  dedicate — we  cannot 
consecrate — we  cannot  hallow  this  ground.  The  brave 
men,  living  and  dead,  who  struggled  here,  have  conse- 
crated it  far  above  our  poor  power  to  add  or  detract.  The 
world  will  little  note,  nor  long  remember,  what  we  say 
here,  but  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is  for 
us,  the  living,  rather  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished 
work  which  they  have,  thus  far,  so  nobly  carried  on.  It  is 
rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  re- 
maining before  us — that  from  these  honored  dead  we  take 
increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  here  gave 
the  last  full  measure  of  devotion — that  we  here  highly 
resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain;  that 
this  nation  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom;  and  that 
this  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the 
people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth. 


"THE  HAY  MANUSCRIPT" 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  ADDRESS 

that  it,  together  with  the  original  manuscript 
of  his  own  speech  delivered  at  Gettysburg, 
might  be  sold  at  a  fair  held  in  New  York  for 
the  benefit  of  the  soldiers. 

In  the  winter  of  1864  a  committee  of 
prominent  people  in  Baltimore  requested 
from  many  of  America's  leading  authors  a 
page  or  two  of  autograph  manuscript,  that 
they  might  be  published  in  facsimile  in  a  vol- 
ume the  proceeds  of  whose  sale  was  to  go  for 
the  benefit  of  the  Soldiers'  and  Sailors'  Fair, 
to  be  held  in  that  city  in  the  following  April. 
Mr.  Bancroft,  the  historian,  in  behalf  of  the 
Committee,  made  a  request  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
for  a  copy  of  the  Gettysburg  Address.  The 
President  sent  an  autograph  copy  of  the  ad- 
dress, but  inadvertently  wrote  on  both  sides 
of  the  paper,  which  made  it  unavailable  for 
lithographing  purposes.  Mr.  Bancroft 
wrote  to  Mr.  Lincoln  explaining  the  diffi- 
culty; he  also  asked  permission  to  keep  the 
copy  that  had  been  sent,  and  requested  an- 
other to  be  written  upon  only  one  side  of  the 
paper.  On  March  11,  1864,  Mr.  Lincoln 
complied  with  both  requests. 

This  second  transcript  of  his  address  sent 
93 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

by  Lincoln  to  Mr.  Bancroft  was  published  in 
facsimile  in  a  volume  entitled,  Autograph 
Leaves  from  our  Country's  Authors,  which 
was  issued  in  Baltimore  in  the  spring  of 
1864. 

The  original  copy  from  which  this  fac- 
simile was  made  is  now  in  the  possession  of 
Professor  William  Bliss,  of  Baltimore;  the 
copy  written  upon  both  sides  of  the  sheet,  in 
the  possession  of  Mr.  Bancroft,  became  at 
his  death  the  property  of  the  Lenox  Library, 
of  New  York. 

Presumably  in  behalf  of  the  Lincoln  Me- 
morial Commission,  which  has  in  charge  the 
erection  of  the  Lincoln  Memorial  at  Wash- 
ington, Senator  Root,  of  New  York,  on  Feb- 
ruary 20, 1913,  introduced  a  resolution  in  the 
United  States  Senate  directing  the  Library 
Committee  to  ascertain  and  determine  upon 
the  correct  version  of  Lincoln's  Gettysburg 
Address  and  to  report  the  same  to  the 
Senate.  That  body  referred  the  matter  to 
the  Librarian  of  Congress,  who  in  due  time 
made  a  report  to  the  Committee  of  five  ex- 
isting versions  of  the  address,  but  he  did  not 
attempt  to  decide  which  one  of  these  should 
94 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  ADDRESS 

be  considered  the  standard  version.  Accom- 
panying his  report  were  photographic  repro- 
ductions of:  (1)  a  facsimile  of  the  original 
manuscript  which  Lincoln  held  in  his  hand 
when  he  made  the  address;  (2)  the  speech  as 
reported  by  the  Massachusetts  Commis- 
sioners who  attended  the  dedication  exer- 
cises; (3)  the  manuscript  made  by  Lincoln 
for  Mr.  Hay  immediately  after  his  return 
from  Gettysburg;  (4)  an  autograph  copy 
made  by  Lincoln  for  the  Baltimore  Fair; 
( 5 )  a  copy  of  the  Associated  Press  report  of 
the  address  as  it  appeared  on  the  morning  of 
November  20,  1864,  in  The  North  Amer- 
ican, of  Philadelphia. 

These  five  versions  agree  in  all  essentials; 
they  differ  only  in  the  minor  matter  of  words 
and  phrasing. 

The  Library  Committee  has  never  made  a 
report  to  the  Senate,  but  the  material  which 
they  gathered  was  made  accessible  to  the  Me- 
morial Commission.  This  Commission,  with 
the  assistance  of  Colonel  Robert  T.  Lincoln, 
after  careful  consideration,  decided  to  use 
on  the  tablet  in  the  Lincoln  Memorial  the 
version  of  the  address  which  Lincoln  on 

95 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

March  11,  1864,  made  and  sent  to  the  Sol- 
diers' and  Sailors'  Fair  in  Baltimore,  and 
which  appeared  in  facsimile  in  the  volume 
entitled  Autograph  Leaves  from  Our  Coun- 
try's Authors. 

The  placing  of  this  version  of  the  address 
in  the  great  Memorial  to  the  martyred  Presi- 
dent will  determine  for  all  time  the  standard 
and  authorized  form  of  this  great  utterance. 


96 


FACSIMILE  or  MR.  LINCOLN'S  AUTOGRAPH  COPY  OF  THE 
GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

Made  by  him  March  11,  1864,"for  the  Soldiers'  and  Sailors'  Fair  at  Baltimore. 
This  version  of  the  address  will  appear  on  the  tablet  in  the  great  Lincoln 
Memorial  at  Washington,  and  now  is  accepted  as  the  final  and  authorized 
form  of  this  great  utterance. 


/, 


CHAPTER  IX 

A  PRODUCT  OF  TRAINING  AND  OF  GENIUS 


LINCOLN  was  not  a  student  of  the  science 
of  government,  nor  was  he  trained  in  the 
great  school  of  diplomacy,  yet  when  Stanton 
on  the  morning  of  April  15,  1865,  softly 
passed  out  of  the  chamber  where  Lincoln  lay 
dead,  he  voiced  in  his  words  the  verdict  of 
history:  "Yonder  lies  the  greatest  ruler  of 
men  this  world  has  ever  known." 

Lincoln  had  never  studied  the  art  of  elo- 
cution, nor  was  he  a  student  of  the  great 
masters  of  oratory,  yet  a  well-known  Eng- 
lish jurist  when  asked  to  name  the  greatest 
British  orator  of  the  nineteenth  century,  an- 
swered: "Lincoln,  the  American." 

He  had  in  a  desultory  way  picked  up  much 
from  Burns,  and  from  Shakespeare,  and, 
especially,  from  the  English  Bible,  but  in  no 
conventional  sense  was  he  a  master  in  the 
realm  of  literature.  He  had  attended  school 
97 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

less  than  one  year  in  his  life,  and  was  almost 
wholly  unacquainted  with  the  literary  men 
or  the  literary  movements  of  his  own  time; 
yet  in  Oxford  University,  where  the  mem- 
ory of  Addison  as  a  source  of  English  unde- 
filed  is  proudly  cherished,  Lincoln's  Bixby 
letter  and  his  Gettysburg  Address  are  stud- 
ied as  perfect  specimens  of  English  compo- 
sition. 

But  Lincoln's  mastery  in  any  one  of  these 
spheres  of  life  was  not  an  effect  without  a 
cause.  It  was  a  product  of  educational  proc- 
esses, albeit  the  processes  were  unconven- 
tional. He  reached  his  goals  as  others  do  by 
weary  travel,  but  he  traveled  unfamiliar 
ways;  he  attained  his  heights  by  toiling  up- 
ward in  the  night,  but  he  toiled  along  un- 
usual and  unfrequented  paths. 

Aside,  fromjp.  poetic  element,  two  nhar- 
acteristics  mark  Lincoln's  literary  style,  and 
these  stafld-.out  preeminent  in  his  Gettysburg 
Address.  In  the  first  place  there  is  the  com- 
prehensive and  perfect  grasping  of  great 
ideas;  then  these  ideas  and  their  logical  rela- 
tions  are  expressed  in  ..language  that  is  con- 
densed, crystalline,  and  perfectly  simple. 
98 


TRAINING  AND  GENIUS 

These  qualities  of  style  were  attained  by  Lin- 
coln as  the  result  of  tireless  effort. 

The  Cooper  Union  address,  given  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1860,  marked  Lincoln's  introduction 
to  the  East;  the  speech  made  a  favorable  im- 
pression, and  as  a  result  he  was  invited  to 
speak  at  several  points  in  New  England. 
On  the  evening  of  March  9  he  spoke  at  Nor- 
wich, Connecticut,  and  the  Rev.  John  D. 
Gulliver,  a  keen  critic  who  was  in  the  audi- 
ence, was  greatly  impressed,  as  were  others, 
by  Mr.  Lincoln's  ability  to  express  the  most 
profound  ideas  with  the  utmost  simplicity. 
It  was  Dr.  Gulliver's  good  fortune  the  next 
morning  to  share  with  Lincoln  the  same  seat 
on  a  train  leaving  Norwich.  Conversation 
turned  to  the  address  of  the  night  before, 
and  Dr.  Gulliver  at  length  ventured  to  ask 
Lincoln  how  he  obtained  his  education.  The 
reply  is  most  interesting. 

"Well,  as  to  education,  the  newspapers  are 
correct.  I  never  went  to  school  more  than 
six  months  in  my  life.  I  can  say  this:  that 
among  my  earliest  recollections  I  remember 
how,  when  a  mere  child,  I  used  to  get  irri- 
tated when  any  one  talked  to  me  in  a  way  I 
99 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

could  not  understand.  I  do  not  think  I  ever 
got  angry  at  anything  else  in  my  life;  but 
that  always  disturbed  my  temper,  and  has 
ever  since.  I  can  remember  going  to  my 
little  bedroom  after  hearing  the  neighbors 
talk  of  an  evening  with  my  father,  and 
spending  no  small  part  of  the  night  walking 
up  and  down  and  trying  to  make  out  what 
was  the  exact  meaning  of  some  of  their,  to 
me,  dark  sayings. 

"I  could  not  sleep,  although  I  tried  to, 
when  I  got  on  such  a  hunt  for  an  idea  until 
I  had  caught  it;  and  when  I  thought  I  had 
got  it  I  was  not  satisfied  until  I  had  repeated 
it  over  and  over;  until  I  had  put  it  in  lan- 
guage plain  enough,  as  I  thought,  for  any 
boy  I  knew  to  comprehend.  This  was  a  kind 
of  passion  with  me  and  has  stuck  by  me ;  for 
I  am  never  easy  now,  when  I  am  handling  a 
thought,  till  I  have  bounded  it  north  and 
bounded  it  south,  and  bounded  it  east  and 
bounded  it  west." 

Lincoln  was  never  satisfied  until  an  idea 

was  focused  upon  the  screen  of  his  thought 

so  that  the  image  did  not  blur,  but  had  an 

outline  clear-cut  and  precise.    He  strove  in 

100 


TRAINING  AND  GENIUS 

his  mental  processes  until  a  fact  stood  out, 
detached,  so  that  he,  in  thought,  could  go 
around  it  as  one  may  walk  around  a  statue  in 
a  gallery. 

His  persistent  effort  to  grasp  a  truth 
clearly  was  equaled  only  by  his  eagerness  to 
be  able  to  express  it  clearly.  He  entered  the 
political  field  when  he  was  in  his  early  twen- 
ties, and  his  first  speeches  were  not  given 
before  large  audiences  where  there  is  the 
temptation  to  make  appeals  to  the  emotions, 
or  indulge  in  oratorical  flourishes  and  glit- 
tering generalities.  He  spoke  in  those  days 
more  often  to  a  dozen  earnest  but  simple  men 
in  country  schoolhouses,  or  in  public  stores, 
or  to  groups  of  two  or  three  as  they  worked 
in  the  woods  or  in  the  fields,  and  under  these 
conditions  the  one  thing  he  strove  for  was  so 
to  present  some  truth  that  the  least  intelli- 
gent of  his  hearers  could  not  fail  to  compre- 
hend it. 

His  skill  in  these  directions,  the  product  of 
his  persistent  effort,  is  strikingly  exhibited 
in  his  legal  methods  and  in  his  handling  of 
political  questions.  Many  times  his  clients 
were  in  despair  as  point  after  point  in  their 
101 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

cases  was  allowed  to  fall,  but  he  never  threw 
away  the  one  point  that  enabled  him  to  win. 
In  his  Douglas  debates  his  friends  were  often 
alarmed  lest  he  should  concede  too  much  to 
his  wily  antagonist,  but  he  never  conceded 
those  fundamental  positions  against  which 
the  eloquence  and  specious  arguments  of  his 
opppnent  broke  in  vain. 

r       *  '  *  • 

In  the  opening  days  of  the  Civil  War  there 
was  much  confusion  of  thought  as  to  what 
the  real  issue  at  stake  was,  and  in  what  direc- 
tion the  first  step  of  duty  was  to  be  taken. 
Mr.  Seward  advocated  a  foreign  war  as  a 
means  of  diverting  attention  from  difficulties 
at  home;  Greeley,  speaking  of  the  seceding 
States,  advised  that  the  erring  sisters  be  per- 
mitted to  go  in  peace;  the  abolitionists, 
scared  by  the  fires  which  they  themselves  had 
kindled,  advanced,  as  Carlyle  would  say, 
their  one  or  more  opinions.  Jin  this  confu- 
sion of  statement  growing^ out  of  a  confusion 
of  thought,  Lincoln  said,  "I  see  my  duty  be- 
fore me  as  plain  as  a  turnpike  road."  The 
real  force  of  this  figure  will  be  appreciated 
only  by  those  who  in  the  Lincoln  country 
have  seen  a  turnpike  stretching  across  the 
102 


TRAINING  AND  GENIUS 

prairies    as    straight    as    a   chalkline    from 
horizon  to  horizon. 

No  President  ever  saw,  or  ever  stated, 
more  clearly  the  central  purposes  of  his  ad- 
ministration than  Lincoln  stated  his  in  the 
famous  communication  to  Horace  Greeley. 
The  reasonings  of  Euclid  in  his  demonstra- 
tions are  not  more  inevitable  than  are  Lin- 
coln's in  this  letter.  ""\ 

It  was  this  feature  of  the  Gettysburg  ad-      \ 
dress  which  led  Mr.  Everett  to  say  to  Lin- 
coln on  the  day  following  the  dedication  that 
he  would  be  glad  if  he  could  flatter  himself 
in  thinking  that  he  came  as  near  to  the  cen- 
tral idea  of  the  occasion  in  two  hours  as  Lin-      j 
coin  came  in  two  minutes.  J 

II 

We  are,  however,  all  too  prone  to  seek  the 
sources  of  men's  power  in  their  educational 
opportunities  and  privileges.  All  that  men 
possess  in  the  way  of  mental  equipment  is 
not  the  product  of  educational  processes. 
Nature  gave  something  to  the  Scotch  lad 
born  in  the  thatched  cottage  by  the  Doon 
which  was  above  and  aside  from  all  that 
103 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

training  could  do.  Nature  gave  something 
to  the  boy  born  in  the  English  village  on  the 
Avon  which  no  educational  system  is  capable 
of  giving.  And  to  this  boy,  born  in  the 
woods  of  Kentucky,  nature  gave,  in  a  full- 
ness of  measure  that  the  schools  cannot  im- 
part, the  literary  sense,  a  feeling  for  the 
cadence  of  words,  a  tenderness  and  sym- 
pathy linked  with  poetic  insight  and  vision 
which  enabled  him  to  see  the  facts  of  human 
life  in  a  setting  of  mystery  and  pathos  sug- 
gestive of  sentiments  that  touch  the  border- 
land of  tears. 

In  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1844, 
when  Lincoln  was  thirty-six,  he  was  invited 
to  make  some  political  speeches  in  Indiana. 
Among  the  places  which  he  visited  was 
Gentryville,  his  boyhood  home,  which  he  had 
not  seen  since  the  day  he  left,  fifteen  years 
before.  He  greeted  again  his  old  friends 
and,  for  the  time  being,  lived  over  again  the 
old  days.  He  walked  through  the  empty 
rooms  of  the  humble  cabin  which  for  years 
had  been  his  home ;  he  followed  the  old  paths 
which  he  had  traveled  as  a  bare-footed  boy. 
He  visited  the  grave  of  his  mother  and  of  his 
104 


TRAINING  AND  GENIUS 

sister  in  the  neglected  cemetery  which 
brought  back  to  him  the  memory  of  the  first 
great  sorrow  that  darkened  his  boyhood 
days. 

Shortly  after  this  visit  to  Gentryville  he 
wrote  the  following  poem : 

My  childhood's  home  I  see  again 

And  sadden  with  the  view; 
And  still,  as  memory  crowds  my  brain, 

There's  pleasure  in  it  too. 

O  Memory !  thou  midway  world 

'Twixt  earth  and  paradise, 
Where  things  decayed  and  loved  ones  lost 

In  dreamy  shadows  rise, 

And,  freed  from  all  that's  earthly  vile, 
Seem  hallowed,  pure,  and  bright, 

Like  scenes  in  some  enchanted  isle 
And  bathed  in  liquid  light. 

As  dusky  mountains  please  the  eye 

When  twilight  chases  day; 
As  bugle-notes  that,  passing  by, 

In  distance  die  away; 

As  leaving  some  grand  waterfall, 

We,  lingering,  list  its  roar — 
So  memory  will  hallow  all 

We've  known  but  know  no  more. 

105 


Near  twenty  years  have  passed  away 

Since  here  I  bid  farewell 
To  woods  and  fields,  and  scenes  of  play, 

And  playmates  loved  so  well. 

Where  many  were,  but  few  remain 

Of  old  familiar  things; 
But  seeing  them  to  mind  again 

The  lost  and  absent  brings. 

The  friends  I  left  that  parting  day, 
How  changed,  as  time  has  sped ! 

Young  childhood  grown,  strong  manhood  gray; 
And  half  of  all  are  dead. 

I  hear  the  loved  survivors  tell 

How  naught  from  death  could  save, 

Till  every  sound  appears  a  knell, 
And  every  spot  a  grave. 

I  range  the  fields  with  pensive  tread, 

And  pace  the  hollow  rooms, 
And  feel  (companion  of  the  dead) 

I'm  living  in  the  tombs. 

This,  perhaps,  is  not  great  poetry,  but 
it  reveals  the  presence,  in  no  mean  degree,  of 
the  poetic  sense  and  the  poetic  feeling. 

On  the  morning  of  February  11,  1861, 
while  scattered  flakes  of  snow  were  begin- 
ning to  drift  across  the  air  prophetic  of  the 
106 


TRAINING  AND  GENIUS 

coming  winter  storm,  even  as  his  few  part- 
ing words  were  prophetic  of  the  storm  that 
was  so  soon  to  break  across  his  life  and  the 
nation's,  he  bade  his  old  neighbors  and 
friends  at  Springfield  a  last  farewell.  He 
stood  on  the  rear  platform  of  the  last  coach 
while  the  crowds  thronged  the  spaces  about 
the  train.  His  remarks  were,  apparently, 
unpremeditated,  yet  his  words  took  the  form 
of  rhythmic  beauty,  and  his  thought,  like  that 
of  the  Hebrew  prophets  at  their  best,  touched 
the  simple  and  the  elemental  things  of  life. 
"My  friends:  no  one,  not  in  my  position, 
can  appreciate  my  feeling  of  sadness  at  this 
parting.  To  this  place,  and  the  kindness  of 
these  people,  I  owe  everything.  Here  I  have 
lived  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  have  passed 
from  a  young  to  an  old  man.  Here  my  chil- 
dren have  been  born  and  one  is  buried.  I 
now  leave,  not  knowing  when  or  whether 
ever  I  may  return,  with  a  task  before  me 
greater  than  that  which  rested  upon  Wash- 
ington. Without  the  assistance  of  that  Di- 
vine Being,  who  ever  attended  him,  I  can- 
not succeed.  With  that  assistance  I  cannot 
fail.  Trusting  in  Him,  who  can  go  with  me, 
107 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

and  remain  with  you,  and  be  everywhere  for 
good,  let  us  confidently  hope  that  all  will  yet 
be  well.  To  His  care  commending  you,  as 
I  hope  in  your  prayers  you  will  commend  me, 
I  bid  you  an  affectionate  farewell." 

At  Lincoln's  suggestion  Seward  wrote  a 
closing  paragraph  for  the  First  Inaugural 
Address.  It  was  clear,  logical,  and  effective 
but  it  was  prose;  Lincoln  touched  it  and  it 
became  poetry.  "I  am  loath  to  close.  We 
are  not  enemies  but  friends.  We  must  not 
be  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have 
strained,  it  must  not  break  our  bonds  of 
affection.  The  mystic  chords  of  memory, 
stretching  from  every  battlefield,  and  patriot 
grave,  to  every  living  heart  and  hearthstone, 
all  over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the 
chorus  of  the  Union,  when  again  touched,  as 
surely  they  will  be,  by  the  better  angels  of 
our  nature." 

On  November  21,  1864,  President  Lin- 
coln wrote  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Lydia  Bixby,  of 
Boston,  which  for  depth  of  pathos  and  for 
beauty  and  simplicity  of  expression  ranks,  in 
the  opinion  of  some,  hardly  second  to  the 
Gettysburg  address. 

108 


is  the  hired  man  of 
>  the  governing  of  the 
sibls^to  his  employers 
still  the  hired  man  of 
set  to  do  blacksmith- 
id  Viee-Prcr.idcnt,  the 
lors,  the  Judges,  chief 
•able  Members  of  Con- 
if  them,  all  the  State 
housand  by  my  count- 
•auts,  operatives  in  that 
lich  is  owned  by  Mr. 
>ectable  gentleman  who 
i  this  continent,  thongh 
He  has  some  per- 
lillion  square  miles  of 


mill,  for  conduct  and  character,  must  answer 
not  only  to  his  God,  but  to  the  People,  the 
mill  owner. 

Theocracy,  the  priest  power,  monarchy,  the 
one-man  power,  and  oligarchy,  the  few-men 
power,  are  three  forms  of  vicarious  government 
over  the  People,  perhaps  for  them,  not  by/them. 
Democracy  is  Direct  Self-government,  over  all 
the  people,  for  all  the  people,  by  all  the  people.  4 
Our  institutions  are  democratic :  theocratic, 
monarchic,  oligarchic  vicariousness  is  all  gone. 
We  have  no  divine  vicar  who  is  responsible  to 
God  for  our  polities  and  religion ;  only  a  hu- 
man attorney-,  asnswcrable  to  the  people  for 
his  official  work.  The  axis  of  rotation  has 
changed:  the  equator  of  the  old  civilization 


Several  years  ago,  when  William  H.  Herndon,  of  the  law  firm  of  "Lincoln  and  Herndon," 
was  clearing  out  the  law  office  preparatory  to  leaving  Springfield,  Mr.  Jesse  W.  Weik  was  in- 
vited to  assist  in  sorting  out  papers  and  letters  which  had  accumulated. 

On  top  of  one  of  the  bookcases  was  a  dust-covered  pasteboard  box  placed  there  appar- 
ently by  Mr.  Lincoln  some  time  before  he  left  for  Washington.  In  the  box  were  several 
bundles  of  papers,  one  of  which  was  laconically  labeled,  in  Lincoln's  handwriting:  "If  you 
can't  find  it  elsewhere  look  in  this."  In  this  box  were  two  pamphlets  by  Theodore  Parker 
which  now  are  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Weik. 

One  pamphlet  is  an  address  delivered  by  Mr.  Parker,  May  26,  1858;  on  page  five  is  this 
sentence:  "Democraey-The-All-Men-Power:  Government  over  all,  by  all,  and  for  the  sake  of 
all."  Around  this  Lincoln  had  drawn  a  line  with  a  lead  pencil. 

The  other  pamphlet  is  a  sermon  by  Mr.  Parker,  given  July  4,  1858,  at  Boston;  on  page 
five  is  this  sentence:  "Democracy  is  Direct  Self-Government,  over  all  the  people,  for  all  the 
people,  by  all  the  people."  As  is  shown  in  the  photograph  above,  Lincoln  had  marked  this 
sentence  on  the  margin.  Further  on,  on  page  fourteen,  was  also  this  marked  sentence:  "Direct 
Government  over  all  the  people,  by  all  the  people,  for  all  the  people." 

These  marked  passages  are  interesting  in  view  of  the  question  as  to  the  origin  in  Lincoln's 
mind  of  the  famous  sentence  with  which  he  closes  his  Address. 


TRAINING  AND  GENIUS 

"I  have  been  shown  in  the  files  of  the  War 
Department  a  statement  of  the  Adjutant 
General  of  Massachusetts  that  you  are  the 
mother  of  five  sons  who  have  died  gloriously 
on  the  field  of  battle.  I  feel  how  weak  and 
fruitless  must  be  any  word  of  mine  which 
should  attempt  to  beguile  you  from  the  grief 
of  a  loss  so  overwhelming.  But  I  cannot  re- 
frain from  tendering  you  the  consolation 
that  may  be  found  in  the  thanks  of  the  Re- 
public they  died  to  save.  I  pray  that  our 
Heavenly  Father  may  assuage  the  anguish 
of  your  bereavement,  and  leave  you  only  the 
cherished  memory  of  the  loved  and  lost,  and 
the  solemn  pride  that  must  be  yours  to  have 
laid  so  costly  a  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of 
freedom." 

Mr.  Jesse  W.  Weik,  joint  author  with 
W.  H.  Herndon  of  The  Herndon  and  Weik 
Life  of  Lincoln,  plausibly  points  out  what, 
in  all  probability,  suggested  to  Lincoln  the 
sublimest  passage  in  his  Second  Inaugural. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  constant  reader  of  the 

Chicago  Tribune,  and  he  could  hardly  have 

missed  seeing  a  leading  editorial  of  that 

paper  in  its  issue  of  August  12,  1862,  en- 

109 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

titled  "The  Justice  of  the  Almighty."  It 
was  an  able  but  rather  an  extreme  and  prosy 
article  dwelling  upon  the  wealth  which  slav- 
ery had  brought  to  America,  and  how,  in  the 
justice  of  God,  that  wealth  must  needs  be 
swept  away  in  the  war  which  slavery 
brought ;  and  that  as  the  life  of  the  slave  had 
not  been  held  as  a  sacred  thing,  so  now  on 
battlefield  and  in  hospital  the  life  of  his  op- 
pressor was  held  as  cheap  and  common. 

As  Shakespeare  took  some  homely  tale 
told  by  stammering  lips  about  a  village 
hearth  and  by  the  touch  of  his  genius  lifted 
it  into  immortal  interest  and  significance,  so 
Lincoln  by  the  touch  of  poetic  insight  raised 
this  commonplace  newspaper  article  to  the 
level  of  the  world's  great  utterances. 

"Fondly  do  we  hope — fervently  do  we 
pray — that  this  mighty  scourge  of  war  may 
speedily  pass  away.  Yet,  if  God  wills  that 
it  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the 
bondsman's  two  hundred  years  of  unrequited 
toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of 
blood  drawn  by  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  an- 
other drawn  by  the  sword,  as  was  said  three 
thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said: 
110 


TRAINING  AND  GENIUS 

The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and 
righteous  altogether." 

Ill 

The  Gettysburg  address  does  not  stand 
out  as  an  exception  among  the  utterances  of 
Lincoln.  It  is  the  natural  and  the  logical 
product  of  his  methods  of  thought  and  of  his 
genius  of  spirit. 

He  had  received  the  invitation  to  be  pres- 
ent at  Gettysburg  on  November  19,  and  to 
speak  the  words  of  dedication  setting  aside  a 
portion  of  the  battlefield  as  a  final  resting 
place  for  those  who  had  there  given  up  their 
lives.  In  connection  with  the  invitation 
Judge  Wills  had  written  at  some  length 
expressing  his  earnest  wish  that  the  Presi- 
dent might  accept,  and  stating  that  his  pres- 
ence would  be  a  consolation  to  many  mourn- 
ers whose  loved  ones  had  fallen  in  the  battle ; 
and  that  it  would  be  a  source  of  encourage- 
ment to  the  soldiers  at  the  front  who  were 
bravely  fighting  the  nation's  battles,  to  know 
that  their  companions  now  sleeping  on  the 
battlefield  were  not  forgotten  by  the  nation's 
highest  representatives.  Over  this  sugges- 
111 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

tion  Lincoln  brooded,  as  occasion  in  those 
busy  days  gave  opportunity.  The  causes 
back  of  great  movements  in  history  are  fully 
understood,  not  before,  but  after  they  have 
worked  out  their  results.  We  can  clearly 
define  issues  only  after  the  shouting  and  the 
tumult  ceases  and  when  the  captains  and  the 
kings  depart.  But  while  the  air  was  still  sul- 
phurous with  cannon  smoke  and  the  ground 
still  trembling  with  the  shock  of  civil  strife, 
Lincoln  saw,  as  perhaps  no  other  man  of  the 
period  did,  the  causal  ideas  at  the  heart  of  the 
struggle.  Clear-cut  on  the  screen  of  his 
thought  was  imaged  the  fundamental  mean- 
ing of  the  sacrifice  of  these  men  who  had  died 
at  Gettysburg,  and  also  a  clear  sense  of  the 
obligation  which  that  sacrifice  imposed  upon 
the  living. 

These  simple  but  comprehensive  ideas 
were  touched  and  colored  by  the  poetic 
genius  of  his  spirit,  now  chastened  by  the  red 
years  during  which  he  had  worn  the  thorn- 
crown  of  a  people  whose  sorrows  his  love  had 
made  his  own,  and  the  result  was  the  great 
address,  America's  only  Psalm. 

112' 


CHAPTER  X 

LEST  WE  FORGET 

NOTWITHSTANDING  Lincoln's  modest  dis- 
claimer, the  world  will  long  remember  what 
he  said  at  Gettysburg.  Truth  only  is  eternal, 
and  the  world  will  cherish  what  he  said  there 
long  after  it  has  forgotten  what  men  did 
there.  The  address,  more  and  more,  is 
seen  to  be  the  expression  in  the  highest  form 
of  literary  art  of  the  central  motive  of  his 
great  career,  and  it  prophetically  imaged  the 
achievement  which  makes  his  name  and  his 
place  in  history  secure.  The  purpose  and 
the  victory  of  his  life  are  both  revealed  in  the 
thought  which  runs  through  those  immortal 
sentences  and  which  culminates  in  those  clos- 
ing words,  half  a  prophecy  and  half  a  prayer, 
"that  govemment  of  the  people, _hji_ the 
people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish.  from_ 
the^  earth." 

It  was  a  noble  ideal  that  dominated  Lin- 
coln's  political  thinking;  and  it  was  a  happy 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

^combination  ..of  circumstances  that  enabled 
him  to  give  utterance  in  immortal  form  to  it 
on  one.. of. the  high  places  of  the  battlefield, 
where  it  was  decisively  determined  that  that 
ideal  should  be  translated  into  terms  of  na- 
tional  law  ftpd  life. 

At  the  nation's  capital,  in  the  shadow  of 
the  great  shaft  which  commemorates  the 
character  and  the  work  of  Washington, 
stands  a  noble  memorial  to  Lincoln.  It  is 
not  a  museum,  where  is  exhibited  the  hat  or 
the  coat  he  wore,  the  pen  he  used  or  the  books 
he  read,  that  men  in  melancholy  interest  may 
muse  over  a  strange  but  perished  past.  It  is 
not  his  tomb,  where  men  may  gather  and  in 
pensive  mood  lament  over  the  dust  of  a  fallen 
leader.  It  is  a  stately  structure  as  simple 
and  as  massive  as  was  his  character  and  as 
enduring  as  is  his  fame. 

In  the  spacious  interior  of  this  memorial 
only  three  objects  stand  out  of  the  simple 
grandeur  to  centralize  attention.  To  the 
back  of  the  main  hall,  facing  the  entrance,  is, 
in  heroic  size,  French's  figure  of  the  Martyr. 
On  the  unadorned  marble  wall  to  the  right 
is  inscribed  the  Second  Inaugural,  where,  in 
114 


LEST  WE  FORGET 

language  as  dignified  and  as  beautiful  as  is 
the  language  of  a  Hebrew  prophet,  Lincoln 
speaks  of  justice  and  of  mercy.  On  the  wall 
to  the  left,  in  similar  simplicity,  is  the  Gettys- 
burg Address,  whose  familiar  words  speak  of 
that  ideal  of  government  where  sovereignty 
rests  with  the  many,  and  where  all  the  ends 
of  law  and  power  is  the  largest  good  for  all 
the  people. 

As  far  as  stone  and  bronze  can  translate 
into  thought  ideals  that  are  spiritual,  this 
memorial  will  be  the  symbol  of  the  living 
influence  of  Lincoln,  who,  though  dead,  yet 
speaketh. 

To  Americans,  Lincoln's  life  will  ever  be 
a  silent  power  pointing,  not  backward  to  "the 
past's  blood-rusted  keys,"  but  forward, 
where  on  heights  of  democracy  not  yet 
reached  the  vision  of  a  new  freedom  and  a 
new  brotherhood  in  American  life  still 
beckons. 

In  one  version  of  the  Address  the  closing 
sentence  reads,  "that  this  government  of  the 
people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people" ;  in  its 
final  form,  however,  this  sentence  was  made 
to  read,  "that  government  of  the  people,  by 
115 


LINCOLN'S  GETTYSBURG  ADDRESS 

the  people,  for  the  people."  It  was  changed 
from  the  particular  to  the  universal,  showing 
that  the  horizon-line  of  Lincoln's  thought 
and  of  his  hope  swept  far  beyond  the  borders 
of  his  own  loved  America.  To  a  world  dark- 
ened by  the  smoke  of  battle  and  red  with  a 
carnage  which  the  ambition  of  kings  and  the 
blood-lust  of  warlords  have  wrought,  Lin- 
coln's life  and  ideals  point  to  a  more  excel- 
lent way. 

When  the  dream  of  that  sad  and  burdened 
heart  which  found  utterance  amid  the  bloody 
places  of  Gettysburg  becomes,  in  the  awak- 
ened consciousness  of  a  race,  a  reality,  then 
will  dawn  the  day : 

When  the  war-drum  will  beat  no  longer, 

And  the  battleflags  be  furled 
In  the  Parliament  of  man, 

The  Federation  of  the  world. 


116 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

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